Situational awareness in the context of clinical practice
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Date
Authors
Feller, Shani
Feller, Liviu
Bhayat, Ahmed
Feller, Gal
Khammissa, Razia Abdool Gafaar
Vally, Zunaid Ismail
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
MDPI
Abstract
In the context of clinical practice, situational awareness refers to conscious awareness
(knowledge), which is a mental model of a given clinical situation in terms of its elements and the
significance of their interrelation. Situational awareness (SA) facilitates clinical reasoning, diagnostic
accuracy, and appropriate goal-directed performance, and it enables clinicians to immediately adapt
treatment strategies in response to changes in clinical situational actualities and to modify the
course of goal-directed activities accordingly. It also helps clinicians prepare future operational
plans and procedures based on the projection of situational developments. SA, therefore, is an
important prerequisite for safe clinical procedures. The purpose of this narrative review is to highlight
certain cognitive and external (environmental) situational factors that influence the development
of situational awareness. Understanding the dynamic, adaptive, and complex interactions between
these factors may assist clinicians and managers of healthcare systems in developing methods aimed
at facilitating the acquisition of accurate clinical situational awareness and, in turn, may bring about
a reduction in the incidence of SA, diagnostic, and operational errors.
Description
Keywords
Situational awareness, Clinical reasoning, Clinical judgement, Decision making, Mental models, Electronic health records, Pattern recognition, Information processing
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG-03:Good heatlh and well-being
Citation
Feller, S.; Feller, L.;
Bhayat, A.; Feller, G.;
Khammissa, R.A.G.; Vally, Z.I.
Situational Awareness in the Context
of Clinical Practice. Healthcare 2023,
11, 3098. https://DOI.org/10.3390/healthcare11233098.