Pointing Fingers: Human or Technology Factors
This morning we stopped in to listen to Tony Easty, PhD, of Toronto General Hospital speak on the criticality of not just acknowledging human factors, but also allowing them to guide the decision-making process. Though far from a controversial topic, Easty distilled the topic to a few compelling cases.
We agree that identifying and considering human factors is key in mitigating risk, however it's only half of the equation. In our quest to identify a single root cause, we're ignoring that there usually cannot be a single cause-- there are too many variables at play.
To quote Easty, "People commonly believe that a disaster has single, simple cause and therefore there must be someone to blame." But what happens when these disasters are not the fault of someone, but rather something -- or even a combination of both? What can we collectively be doing to ensure that we're solving the problem by address both sides of the equation: the human and technology factors?
Joe Lavelle (@Resultant) tweeted about the challenge of building test environments and keeping them fresh. We agree that it's a huge challenge, but also feel that it pales in comparison to the challenge of keeping the left hand abreast of what the right hand is doing. Optimizing healthcare enviroments involves a lot of moving parts that create layered challenges. So, yes, building test environments is a challenge and keeping them fresh makes it all the more complicated, and still we've yet to factor in people and the variablity that they bring to the table. Easty suggested that end users be responsible for contributing to the creation of the technologies and systems they will ultimately be tasked with using. Sounds like a good idea.
In the end it comes down to a simple question: is collaboration, whether across people, processes, or facilities, the key to the future? And if so, is it possibile at the scale and pace of the industry?