A Military Aviation model for Patient Safety?

In the September 2013 edition of the British Medical Journal, Robyn Clay-Williams has published a thought provoking article on the modelling of clinical risk management on civil aviation practices, and questions whether a military aviation model may be more prudent when assessing and managing risk in the healthcare environment.  The abstract can be found HERE.

The author questions the appropriateness of translating sometimes rigid civil aviation processes (and a zero tolerance for risk) into healthcare, as some healthcare systems (such as emergency departments and intensive care units) need more flexibility and autonomy in their workings and risk management. She suggests managing risk in high stakes clinical environments such as these would be more conducive to a military aviation model – the parallels being teams with limited resources who deal routinely with unpredictable situations, complex and time critical operations (as would happen frequently in the pre-hospital environment or the ED…