Committed to Safety: Ten Case Studies on Reducing Harm to Patients

Presents case studies of healthcare organizations, clinical teams, and learning collaborations to illustrate successful innovations for improving patient safety nationwide. Includes actions taken, results achieved, lessons learned, and recommendations

Active Learning: Effects of Core Training Design Elements on Self-Regulatory Processes, Learning, and Adaptability

This research describes a comprehensive examination of the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying active learning approaches, their effects on learning and transfer, and the core training design elements (exploration, training frame, emotion-control) and individual differences (cognitive ability, trait goal orientation, trait anxiety) that shape these processes. Participants (N = 350) were trained to operate a complex computer-based simulation. Exploratory learning and error-encouragement framing had a positive effect on adaptive transfer performance and interacted with cognitive ability and dispositional goal orientation to influence trainees’ metacognition and state goal orientation. Trainees who received the emotion-control strategy had lower levels of state anxiety. Implications for developing an integrated theory of active learning, learner-centered design, and research extensions are discussed

Do we measure what we get?

Performance measures shall enhance the performance of companies by directing the attention of decision makers towards the achievement of organizational goals. Therefore, goal congruence is regarded in literature as a major factor in the quality of such measures. As reality is affected by many variables, in practice one has tried to achieve a high degree of goal congruence by incorporating an increasing number of these variables into performance measures. However, a goal congruent measure does not lead automatically to superior decisions, because decision makers’ restricted cognitive abilities can counteract the intended effects. This paper addresses the interplay between goal congruence and complexity of performance measures considering cognitively-restricted decision makers. Two types of decision quality are derived which allow a differentiated view on the influence of this interplay on decision quality and learning. The simulation experiments based on this differentiation provide results which allow a critical reflection on costs and benefits of goal congruence and the assumptions regarding the goal congruence of incentive systems

On a Proper Meta-Analytic Model for Correlations

Combining statistical information across studies is a standard research tool in applied psychology. The most common approach in applied psychology is the fixed effects model. The fixed-effects approach assumes that individual study characteristics such as treatment conditions, study context, or individual differences do not influence study effect sizes. That is, that the majority of the differences between the effect sizes of different studies can be explained by sampling error alone. We critique the fixed-effects methodology for correlations and propose an advancement, the random-effects model, that ameliorates problems imposed by fixed-effects models. The random-effects approach explicitly incorporates between-study differences in data analysis and provides estimates of how those study characteristics influence the relationships among constructs of interest. Because they can model the influence of study characteristics, we assert that random-effects models have advantages for psychological research. Parameter estimates of both models are compared and evidence in favor of the random-effects approach is presented

Modelling workplace contact networks: the effects of organizational structure, architecture, and reporting errors on epidemic predictions

Face-to-face social contacts are potentially important transmission routes for acute respiratory infections, and understanding the contact network can improve our ability to predict, contain, and control epidemics. Although workplaces are important settings for infectious disease transmission, few studies have collected workplace contact data and estimated workplace contact networks. We use contact diaries, architectural distance measures, and institutional structures to estimate social contact networks within a Swiss research institute. Some contact reports were inconsistent, indicating reporting errors. We adjust for this with a latent variable model, jointly estimating the true (unobserved) network of contacts and duration-specific reporting probabilities. We find that contact probability decreases with distance, and research group membership, role, and shared projects are strongly predictive of contact patterns. Estimated reporting probabilities were low only for 0-5 minute contacts. Adjusting for reporting error changed the estimate of the duration distribution, but did not change the estimates of covariate effects and had little effect on epidemic predictions. Our epidemic simulation study indicates that inclusion of network structure based on architectural and organizational structure data can improve the accuracy of epidemic forecasting models.Comment: 36 pages, 4 figure

Introducing the STAMP method in road tunnel safety assessment

After the tremendous accidents in European road tunnels over the past decade, many risk assessment methods have been proposed worldwide, most of them based on Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA). Although QRAs are helpful to address physical aspects and facilities of tunnels, current approaches in the road tunnel field have limitations to model organizational aspects, software behavior and the adaptation of the tunnel system over time. This paper reviews the aforementioned limitations and highlights the need to enhance the safety assessment process of these critical infrastructures with a complementary approach that links the organizational factors to the operational and technical issues, analyze software behavior and models the dynamics of the tunnel system. To achieve this objective, this paper examines the scope for introducing a safety assessment method which is based on the systems thinking paradigm and draws upon the STAMP model. The method proposed is demonstrated through a case study of a tunnel ventilation system and the results show that it has the potential to identify scenarios that encompass both the technical system and the organizational structure. However, since the method does not provide quantitative estimations of risk, it is recommended to be used as a complementary approach to the traditional risk assessments rather than as an alternative. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Simulation of the Categorization-Elaboration Model of Diversity and Work-Group Performance

The relationship between the diversity of work-groups and their performance continues to be a key concern in the study of organizational behavior. Several models have been proposed to explain this relationship, generally concentrating on the interplay between two main factors: diversity as a source of varied knowledge and viewpoints that a group can draw upon to increase its performance, and diversity as a source of dissention in groups, causing group fracturing and bias, leading to decreases in performance. Recently a model called the categorization-elaboration model (CEM) (van Knippenburg, et. al. 2004) was proposed which integrates existing research in diversity and group performance into a unified framework. We perform an agent-based simulation of the CEM where groups are modeled as coalitions of rational agents which draw from distinct experience pools and which collectively try and solve a simple forecasting problem. We simulate how the performance of the coalition varies with the diversity of the agents\' background experiences, and find that the resulting performance/diversity relationship is curvilinear in nature (specifically, inversely u-shaped), as predicted anecdotally in the van Knippenburg work. Additionally, we find a point of unstable equilibrium in the performance/diversity curve at the no-diversity point, such that at the no-diversity point, small increases in diversity have little or no effect on performance. We point out a connection between the existence of this feature, which would seem to highlight the importance of external diversity-encouraging efforts such as affirmative action-type initiatives and early economic work which suggests that market-based forces should be sufficient to ensure high levels of diversity in organizations.Workgroup Performance, Diversity, Categorization-Elaboration Model, Multi-Agent System, Market Forces

The developmental dynamics of terrorist organizations

We identify robust statistical patterns in the frequency and severity of violent attacks by terrorist organizations as they grow and age. Using group-level static and dynamic analyses of terrorist events worldwide from 1968-2008 and a simulation model of organizational dynamics, we show that the production of violent events tends to accelerate with increasing size and experience. This coupling of frequency, experience and size arises from a fundamental positive feedback loop in which attacks lead to growth which leads to increased production of new attacks. In contrast, event severity is independent of both size and experience. Thus larger, more experienced organizations are more deadly because they attack more frequently, not because their attacks are more deadly, and large events are equally likely to come from large and small organizations. These results hold across political ideologies and time, suggesting that the frequency and severity of terrorism may be constrained by fundamental processes.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, supplementary materia