Complexity, signal detection, and the application of ergonomics: Reflections on a healthcare case study

Complexity is a defining characteristic of healthcare, and ergonomic interventions in clinical practice need to take into account aspects vital for the success or failure of new technology. The introduction of new monitoring technology, for example, creates many ripple effects through clinical relationships and agents’ cross-adaptations. This paper uses the signal detection paradigm to account for a case in which multiple clinical decision makers, across power hierarchies and gender gaps, manipulate each others’ sensitivities to evidence and decision criteria. These are possible to analyze and predict with an applied ergonomics that is sensitive to the social complexities of the workplace, including power, gender, hierarchy and fuzzy system boundaries.

► Complexity is a defining characteristic of modern healthcare. ► The introduction of new technology often creates reverberations typical of complexity. ► Signal detection can be extended to capture the influence that new technology exerts on social and networked complexities. ► This includes how multiple interacting and cross-adapting agents manipulate each others’ d’ and β. ► This raises questions about social order, power, hierarchy, gender and the distribution of resources across a workplace.