This book addresses all issues relevant to error prevention and safe practice in the acute and emergency health-care setting. It begins with the basic principles of human behavior and decision making and then partitions into three sections where the individual, the team, and the organizational influences within the health-care system are discussed in greater depth.

Case reports and proven strategies help to ground psychological theory in daily practice. This book has emerged from a long-standing cooperation between clinicians and psychologists. Blending the strengths of both professions into a readily accessible text has created a book which will hopefully help both physicians and non-physicians to better understand the principles of human behavior and decision making in critical situations and in turn enable them to provide safer treatment.

Unsuspected medical crisis and emergency situations may be managed more effectively and an increased awareness of contributing factors may help to avoid errors from the outset.

Basic Principles: Error, Complexity, and Human Behavior

The Human Factors: Errors and Skills
The Challenge of Acute Healthcare
The Nature of Error
The Psychology of Human Action
Individual Factors of Behavior
Human Perception: the Way We See Things
Information Processing and Mental Models: World Views
Goals and Plans: Turning Points for Success
Attention: in the Focus of Consciousness
Stress
Strategies for Action: Ways to Achieve Good Decisions
The Team
The Key to Success: Teamwork
Speech is Golden: Communication
Leadership
The Organization
Organizations and Human Error
Reliable Acute Care Medicine.