Towards a framework to select techniques for error prediction: supporting novice users in the healthcare sector

Whilst healthcare has increased its awareness of the retrospective safety assessment techniques, such as root cause analysis, adoption of the corresponding predictive safety assessment techniques has been slow and sporadic. Reasons for this may include lack of support in technique choice and practical knowledge in the published literature. Whilst there have been many publications on these techniques, few have aimed to support the novice user in selecting a technique from the broad array of choice to facilitate targeting of education in techniques for specific purposes. This paper aims to address this through collecting an evidence base towards developing a bottom-up (resources and constraints) and top-down (requirements) approach to technique selection. Conclusions indicate there is a lack of practical experiences described in the literature to conclusively define a technique for selection and a need for a dedicated research in this area to make it accessible for healthcare and other novice users.