Kinnear_2017.doc (196.5 kB)
Evaluating team decision-making as an emergent phenomenon
journal contribution
posted on 2023-08-30, 15:02 authored by John Kinnear, Nick Wilson, Anthony O'DwyerBackground:
The complexity of modern clinical practice has highlighted the fallibility of individual clinicians’ decision-making, with teamwork emerging as a key to patient safety. Dual process theory is widely accepted as a framework for individual decision-making, with type 1 processes responsible for fast, intuitive and automatic decisions, and type 2 processes for slow, analytical decisions. However, dual process theory does not explain cognition at the group level, when individuals act in teams. Team cognition resulting from dynamic interaction of individuals is said to be more resilient to decision-making error, and greater than simply aggregated cognition.
Methods:
Clinicians were paired as teams and asked to solve a cognitive puzzle constructed as a drug calculation. The frequency at which the teams made incorrect decisions was compared with that of individual clinicians answering the same question.
Results:
When clinicians acted in pairs 63% answered the cognitive puzzle correctly, compared with 33% of clinicians as individuals, showing a statistically significant difference in performance (χ2 (1, n=116)=24.329, p=0.000). Based on the predicted performance of teams made up of the random pairing of individuals who had the same propensity to answer as previously, there was no statistical difference in the actual and predicted teams’ performance.
Conclusions:
Teams are less prone to making errors of decision-making than individuals. However, the improved performance is likely to be owing to the effect of aggregated cognition rather than any improved decision-making as a result of the interaction. There is no evidence of team cognition as an emergent and distinct entity.
History
Refereed
- Yes
Volume
94Issue number
1110Page range
216-219Publication title
Postgraduate Medical JournalISSN
1469-0756External DOI
Publisher
BMJFile version
- Accepted version
Language
- eng
Legacy posted date
2018-01-02Legacy creation date
2017-12-27Legacy Faculty/School/Department
ARCHIVED Faculty of Medical Science (until September 2018)Usage metrics
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