Approximately 75% of air accidents are caused by human error.
In medicine, 1 in 5 Medicare patients die as a result of negligence in care according to HealthGrades (U.S. health care rating organization)
Inaccurate and delayed diagnoses occurred 20 percent of the time, causing an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 deaths per year, from the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Thanks to the US for this level of reporting integrity)
These error rates which are the cause of accidents and incidents occur across all types of human activities.
To address this, the aviation community introduced human factors training as Cockpit Resource Management in the late 1970s. This evolved into Crew Resource Management after more understanding was attained.
Why Human Organisational Factors Training?
Increase Safety / Reduce Risk
Manage Error
Reduce Incidents /Accidents + Costs
Improve Efficiency
Provide Duty of Care for Employees
Deliver Positive Return on Investment
Mitigate against Corporate Manslaughter
As very few of us have ever received any formal training in decision making or safety (risk) assessment training, this has led to weakness in personal, industry and public risk perception.
For example:
A survey of rail industry employees and managers (US) found beliefs that: 42% of accidents are caused by ‘human errors’. Whereas ‘human error’ actually causes 80% of accidents according to ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau)
Today, some educated professionals still miss-perceive they require no training in these subject areas.
Have you ever experienced ‘communications breakdowns’ in your life?