Human factors and error prevention in emergency medicine

Emergency departments are one of the highest risk areas in health care. Emergency physicians have to assemble and manage unrehearsed multidisciplinary teams with little notice and manage critically ill patients. With greater emphasis on management and leadership skills, there is an increasing awareness of the importance of human factors in making changes to improve patient safety. Non-clinical skills are required to achieve this in an information-poor environment and to minimise the risk of errors. Training in these non-clinical skills is a mandatory component in other high-risk industries, such as aviation and, needs to be part of an emergency physician's skill set. Therefore, there remains an educational gap that we need to fill before an emergency physician is equipped to function as a team leader and manager. This review will examine the lessons from aviation and how these are applicable to emergency medicine. Solutions to averting errors are discussed and the need for formal human factors training in emergency medicine.