title: Complexity, signal detection, and the application of ergonomics: reflections on a healthcare case study.
abstract: Complexity is a defining characteristic of healthcare, and ergonomic interventions in clinical practice need to take into account aspects vital for the success or failure of new technology. The introduction of new monitoring technology, for example, creates many ripple effects through clinical relationships and agents' cross-adaptations. This paper uses the signal detection paradigm to account for a case in which multiple clinical decision makers, across power hierarchies and gender gaps, manipulate each others' sensitivities to evidence and decision criteria. These are possible to analyze and predict with an applied ergonomics that is sensitive to the social complexities of the workplace, including power, gender, hierarchy and fuzzy system boundaries.
authors.affiliation: Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, Griffith University, Room 5.18 Social Sciences Building, Messines Ridge Road, Mt. Gravatt, Queensland 4122, Australia. s.dekker@griffith.edu.au
authors.forename: Sidney
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dekker
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D006804:Ergonomics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D009774:Obstetrics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D011593:Psychology, Social; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological