The term 'human factors' refers to people's physical and psychological behaviour in response to different environmental, organizational and social situations. It covers areas such as communication, conflict and decision-making as well as more physical aspects such as the room size, availability of equipment, storage and adequate lighting. Awareness of these factors can enable you to mitigate their impact to some degree.
Select each of the highlighted boxes to learn more about human factors
Select one of the text boxes for more information.
Task fixation
Task fixation is when you become preoccupied with a single objective while neglecting the bigger picture.
You may find it difficult to abandon traditional attempts at securing the airway, and embark on something unfamiliar and frightening.
Situational awareness
Loss of situational awareness means you may be unaware of significant periods of time passing.
In the example of a CICO scenario this can mean lengthy periods of hypoxia. You can employ methods like having a member of staff call out 30 second intervals, or set a time limit on any further attempts at intubation to try to limit this.
It is also helpful to have a 'hands off' team leader with an overall view of the situation.
Communication
Breakdown of communication is often central in critical incidents.
Verbalize that this is an emergency situation, and continue to communicate clearly with the whole of your team.
Trying to pick the key components out of a long speech is difficult, so keep information condensed. It is easy for key messages to be lost amongst irrelevant information, which also serves to clog up your bandwidth.
Bandwidth refers to the amount of information your short-term memory can hold before it becomes saturated and you cannot reliably take in and act on further information.
Horizontal hierarchy
This refers to the importance of using all members of your team and valuing everyone's contribution no matter what their 'badge' says.
Leaders must be able to make decisive decisions in these difficult circumstances, but it is also imperative that they are good listeners. Equally, all team members must be confident enough to speak up when they have an idea, or see something that they think is important.
It is this flexibility that enables the team to function to its maximum potential, minimizing the potential of something important being missed in the heat of the moment.
Reaction under pressure
How you react under pressure is unique to each person, and how your team reacts to you also depends on many factors.
It is worth taking a few minutes to reflect on your own personality and character especially when your bandwidth has been filled.
Do you go very quiet and stop communicating? Or become authorative and loud? An awareness of this can be useful to the rest of your team as they may pick up that you are stressed before you realize it and can potentially offer support or advice when you need it most.
Teamwork
Above all, remember that dealing with emergency situations is a team effort. The team is most likely to succeed if all its members are aware of what is happening now, what the plan is when this does not work, and what to expect next.
It is much easier if everyone has been briefed beforehand.