Observation for assessment of clinician performance: a narrative review.
Observation has been used as a way to study opportunities for improvement in teamwork, practice, and guideline compliance. According to this review, observation was utilized most often in high-risk environments—like the emergency department—and helped to identify weaknesses in care processes. The authors also describe drawbacks to this method, such as the Hawthorne effect and the substantial resources required to train observers and data analyzers.