MAKING BETTER DECISIONS MISTAKES, BIASES, IRRATIONAL EFFECTS, AND INSPIRED GENIUS! One-Day Workshop Thursday 14 June 2007 (9.00am 4.00pm) Northern Sydney Education Centre Macquarie Hospital, Wicks Road, North Ryde, NSW 2113 Unexpected discoveries regarding how we make decisions have led to several Nobel prizes and have shaken the foundations of economics, finance, law and management. This workshop sums up this new knowledge and its lessons for making better decisions in healthcare. Workshop Leader Rod O'Connor Director Rod O'Connor and Associates P/L, Consultants in Healthcare Measurement and Planning, & Conjoint Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of NSW
Background to the workshop In the last ten to twenty years the world has witnessed exciting discoveries in human decision making. These discoveries have revealed strange aspects of our nature, behaviours and capacities we were barely conscious of but which seem to influence most of our decision making. The findings reveal we are nothing like as rational as had been assumed. They have shaken the foundations of economics, finance, business, and law. They have also resulted in several Nobel prizes, for work in behavioural economics, heuristics and biases, and naturalistic decision making. Now they are progressively influencing healthcare, initially clinical care, and now more generally. This workshop sets out these new insights into the way we make decisions. It explains what we have learned about the mechanisms that underlie both good and poor decisions. It considers individual and group decision making, decisions by managers, professionals and patients, and examines strategies for improved decision making. Outcomes from the workshop At the end of the workshop, participants should be able to explain: the way real decision making differs from idealised decision making, and where traditional models of decision making have been found wanting what is important about bounded awareness and bounded rationality what are heuristics and biases and the basic elements of loss aversion, availability bias, confirmation bias, framing, anchoring and hindsight bias the key elements of naturalistic decision making or NDM, and how experts are both better and worse than novices the central role emotion plays in decision making, and how it can lead to misplaced confidence when thinking too much leads to bad decisions, and instant decisions are the best ones.. the nature of adaptation and why it is central to human decisions the relationship between evidence-based medicine, cognitive biases, naturalistic decision making, and systems approaches the role of cognitive heuristics and biases in errors of doctors and patients the nature of the interpersonal decision bias attribution error and how it may lead to negative and unproductive attitudes some strategies for reducing errors by opposing cognitive biases why group decision making can lead to sub-optimal decisions, where it is very effective, and where it is best avoided
Who should attend? Healthcare professionals in: Management Administration Research Clinical Care Teaching/Learning Methods and Associated Advice The workshop will consist of lectures, discussions and group work. All materials required will be provided, including overheads and an extensive set of reference articles. A selection of readings will be distributed to assist preparation for the workshop. Workshop Leader Rod O'Connor PhD is a consultant in health care research and development (since the mid 1980s) and Conjoint Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales. He has a PhD in experimental cognitive psychology/ artificial intelligence and further training in health economics (Monash), health outcomes measurement (Harvard School of Public Health), and modern psychometrics (University of Illinois at Chicago). Rod has worked on the development of decision tools to assist allocate the $4 billion per year Commonwealth Disability Support Pension (the Work Ability Tables ), Aboriginal health infrastructure funding (the Environmental Health effects Scale ), assess medication compliance (the Asthma Medication Adherence Questionnaire ), home-carer burden, and dysphagia. His book Measuring Quality of Life in Health was published by Elsevier/ Churchill Livingstone (London, New York) in 2004. Rod has been a World Health Organisation (WHO) Consultant in Outcomes Research (2001) and Situational Analysis for policy (2002); an invited rapporteur on Quality of Life Measurement for the UK Economic & Social Research Council, UK's leading research funding and training agency (2003); invited referee for the U.K. National Co-ordinating Centre for Research Capacity Development (2004); and technical adviser to the Ministry of Health, P.R.China, on behalf of The World Bank for the H8 Health Service Quality Improvement Program (2006/2007). He is a member of the Societies of Judgement and Decision Making, & Medical Decision Making, and is currently preparing a book examining the cognitive and emotional characteristics of human decision making and the implications for how we can fix up our act. Further information may be found at www.rodoconnorassoc.com Alternatively phone Rod on 02 9555 9916 or email rod@rodoconnorassoc.com
Workshop Outline (note this may be amended) A Introduction The new understanding of the way we make decisions Effects on economics, finance, law, management, and healthcare B The way we make decisions The old rational decision making, utility theory, and classical normative decision theory The new - bounded awareness and bounded rationality Heuristics and biases : framing, anchoring, availability bias, the representativeness heuristic, confirmation bias, loss aversion and prospect theory, neglect of probability, hindsight bias, the effect of beliefs, choice effects, influences on risk taking Conscious and unconscious perception and judgement Naturalistic decision making : pattern recognition, feasibility and action Emotion and decision making When thinking too much leads to bad decisions, and instant decisions are the best ones Adaptation - why the sum is less than the parts Forecasting future feelings Creativity and forming options C Group, interpersonal and population effects Biases concerning others Attribution error, correspondence bias Deception and discrimination Consensus its limits, and lessons for intellectual trends D Application to health care Prospect theory and health Patient decisions Medical errors Expert intuition versus novice decision making Management decision aids, expert systems, and complex decisions E Conclusion Reconciling evidence-based medicine, heuristics and biases, systems theory, and naturalistic decision making Knowing when to work against and when to work with ourselves For more information on Workshop Content, phone Rod O'Connor on 0413 60 70 73, or email rod@rodoconnorassoc.com
Making Better Decisions Workshop Thursday 14 June 2007 Northern Sydney Education Centre 9.00am 4.00pm REGIISTRATIION FORM Fax tto:: 02 9889 3099 $475 (inc. GST) includes Morning & Afternoon Tea and Lunch Title First Name Surname Position Organisation Address Town/Suburb State Postcode Telephone Fax Email* *(required for registration confirmation to be sent) Special Dietary Requirements PAYMENT (Fully Tax Deductible) A Tax Invoice will be sent TAX INVOICE ABN 41 008 390 734 Cheque (must accompany registration and be made payable to ACHSE NSW). EFT (please forward remittance advice) Visa Mastercard Card Number: / / / Total Amount: $ Expiry Date: / Cardholder s Name: Cardholder s Signature: Payment Policy It is a condition of registration that full payment is received prior to the commencement of the event. Cancellation and Refund Policy If after registering for the event, you find yourself unable to come, we will refund your registration fee in full up until Thursday 31 May 2007. Any cancellations made after this date and up until Thursday 7 June 2007 will be refunded, less an administrative fee of $110. After Thursday 7 June 2007, we regret that NO REFUNDS can be given. You can at any time, however, substitute a replacement delegate at no charge or transfer your fee to a future Rod O Connor workshop. Insurance We strongly recommend that you take out an insurance policy if you have made flight or hotel reservations in order to attend this event. If, due to circumstances beyond our control, the event is cancelled, we cannot be held responsible for any loss of money due to cancelled flight or hotel bookings. Privacy Policy The collection of this information is primarily so that we can register you for this event. The information (excluding payment details) will be stored in the ACHSE database and may be used for future marketing of ACHSE events. If you are not a member of ACHSE and do not wish your details to be retained by the College, we ask that you notify us in writing to events@achsensw.org.au Please forward your completed registration form with payment to: ACHSE (NSW Branch) P O Box 341 North Ryde NSW 1670 Fax: 02 9889 3099 For any queries, please contact: Jane Edwards Events Manager Ph: 02 9805 0431 Email: events@achsensw.org.au