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Recently, a blog post on Australian website "Resus Room Management" challenged the frequently made comparisons between crisis resource management principles in aviation and critical care medicine.

In his post, Andy Buck raises concerns over the widespread implementation of aviation based strategies to overcome frequently occuring human factors in critical incidents in a health care setting.  He argues that too little is known about the behaviours of healthcare professionals in critical illness, and that adoption of aviation practices is premature.

I think in one sense, Andy is right on the money.  There remains a large gap in the literature on the common behaviours of health practitioners under the pressure of a crisis.  Further work would enable the development of specific interventions that may prevent, trap and mitigate errors.

However, in my mind, the same contributors (albeit dressed up in health care clothes) are responsible for critical events in medicine.  Communication failures, inability to prioritise, inability to access resources, inability to initiate and activate emergency procedures and a failure to maintain situational awareness are all clear factors in many incidents.  Aviation has stepped up to the plate and has implemented strategies to deal with these issues.  Healthcare, by and large, has not.

Obviously, the specific interventions will be different between the industries, but surely while we wait for further information to come forth, is it not time we act?