title: Situational awareness - what it means for clinicians, its recognition and importance in patient safety.
abstract: A thorough understanding of the role of human factors in error in health care for improving patient safely is paramount. One area particularly crucial for optimising clinical performance is the recognising the importance of situational awareness. Loss of situation awareness can occur in many different settings, particularly during stressful and unexpected situations. Tunnel vision is a classic example where clinicians focus on one aspect of care, often to the detriment of overall patient management. Loss of situational awareness can result in serious compromise to patient safety if it is not recognised by either the individual or clinical team. We provide an introduction to situational awareness for those not familiar with it, including some important theory which explains how awareness can be lost, and discuss the important approaches we use in our day-to-day practice to safeguard both patients and clinicians in the workplace environment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Torbay Hospital, Torquay, UK.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Green
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, Guys Hospital, London, UK.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Parry
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University Hospital, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: R S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Oeppen
authors.affiliation: Wessex HEE, Otterbourne, Hampshire, UK.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Plint
authors.affiliation: Atrainability Limited, Surrey, UK.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth, UK.
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Brennan
mesh_terms: D001364:Awareness; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010348:Patient Care Team; D061214:Patient Safety; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology
keywords: error; human factors; patient safety; situational awareness