What pilots can teach doctors

The first key is to embrace education and humility. As care providers we must always seek to evolve our knowledge and practice, always! As a Veteran owned clinically founded company, we develop products that facilitate highly reliable processes of care. While we may have started with surgical patient positioning products, we have many evolved products and techs coming out. We found that through our clinical experience, and the experience of our other members (a pilot CRM resource educator, Occupational Safety officer, and military leaders), we were able to develop products that relied less on human factors, creativity, & resourcefulness, those traits typical of today’s positioning products and processes. We created highly reliable solutions that allowed providers a way to optimize processes that keep them safe, while improving the efficacy needed to keep their patients safe. The key for us was to reduce variance, by creating solutions that facilitated care. So many of today’s “clip and paste” products were developed by people who understood what the customers needed, but failed to investigate the processes inherent to reaching the end point, especially when it comes to positioning larger patients. https://vimeo.com/329894996

As a patient, I am most comfortable where there is real rapport between doctors and staff - and candor from all parties. Likewise in business for that matter. Fortunately, I have observed that more and more frequently in the last decade.

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to be conscious through the process review phase of an operation. The chief operating nurse went through a check list and led each participants on their process involvement. It was an interactive peer session akin to a software development project management morning review. Respect and no egos. This was at a VA hospital in Seattle with the MDs from the University of Washington. Needless to say I was not only impressed but being in IT, could relate to the methodology. When discussing the concept of ego and power with MDs, the age factor comes up. IT had the same issue in its early days until there was agreement that group participation yielded a more robust product.

All valid points. However a big difference is that nurses and doctors cannot refuse to take off in acute work because the environment is unsafe. Doctors and nurses are not empowered in that way in the UK.

I would like to see education about human factors introduced into all health professionals curriculum. It’s a concept rarely discussed in health care

I appreciate the linkage between healthcare and aviation in so many respects. Additionally, there are quite a few lessons learned in aviation that are applicable to healthcare. However despite the adoption of crew resource management in aviation, this hasn’t translated well into healthcare. Medicine is still a very hierarchical environment and until the medicine-equivalent CRM adoption is more widespread, mistakes will continue to happen.