Contrasts between aviation and healthcare
| Aviation examples29 | Healthcare examples30 | |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment design | A cockpit is designed to minimise perceptual and control errors,31 security systems have been developed to reduce operator fatigue and boredom and enhance training opportunities32 | Equipment predisposes to control33 and perceptual errors,34 often poorly maintained, with significant gaps in engineering for safety35 |
| Task design | Design based on a thorough understanding of what is needed to get an aircraft safely from A to B36 | Lack of standardisation,37 professional autonomy, differences between practice settings, and differing prioritisations of competing goals gave rise to widespread variation in individual behaviours and institutional protocols,38 making task definition a challenge |
| Communications and teamwork | Structured communications are embedded within tasks that are well defined, trained and practiced39 | Safety communications40 and tasks41are highly variable and tasks can be intermittently performed41 |
| Selection and training | Specific scientific approach,42 including simulation and recurrent training30 | Training follows the apprentice model, with little attention to rigorously establishing which skills are essential or even for evaluating the degree to which these skills have been successfully acquired43 |
| Incident reporting systems | Encouraged reporting behaviours.44 ‘Black box’ flight recorders allow the detailed independent reconstruction of accidents45 | Usually ineffective,46 with reconstruction of incidents rarely possible,47 and ‘black boxes’ culturally difficult to employ.48 Only the most tragic of events are investigated independently49 |