Role of cognition in generating and mitigating clinical errors.

Cognition has been recognized as a human factor that can contribute to failures in health care. This review examines cognitive aspects of human error that affect patient safety, methods to augment detection of flawed decision-making, and the potential for educational approaches like virtual reality simulation to train physicians to manage cognitive error once it occurs. A Perspective interview with Dr. Pat Croskerry explored the role of cognition in medical error.