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Re-thinking Complexity in the Critical Care Environment

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Book cover Cognitive Informatics in Health and Biomedicine

Part of the book series: Health Informatics ((HI))

Abstract

The term “complexity” is used to define tasks or systems ranging from complicated to intractable, and to generally mean “not simple.” As noted by a Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, “a variety of different measures would be required to capture all our intuitive ideas about what is meant by complexity and by its opposite, simplicity” [1]. But, it is generally acknowledged that complexity is context-dependent [2], and subjective [1]. While the implications for complexity has been discussed within the context of several settings [3–8], some of these discussions have been met with skepticism (e.g., [9, 10]), provoking responses that the key ideas of complexity theory used in healthcare are often distorted ideas, “trotted out in the guise of complexity” [9], and are merely the “emperor’s new toolkit” [10].

Portions of this chapter (including figures) have been adapted from Kannampallil et al., Considering complexity in healthcare systems. Journal of Biomedical Informatics. 44(6): 443–447, with permissions from Elsevier.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Computability is not related to computational complexity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Cognitive Studies in Medicine and Public Health, New York Academy of Medicine, New York, NY, 10029, USA

    Thomas G. Kannampallil & Vimla L. Patel PhD, DSc, FRSC

  2. School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX, 77054, USA

    Trevor Cohen MB ChB, PhD

  3. Department of Biomedical Informatics, Arizona State University, Scottsdale, AZ, 85259, USA

    David R. Kaufman PhD & Vimla L. Patel PhD, DSc, FRSC

  4. Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Vimla L. Patel PhD, DSc, FRSC

Authors
  1. Thomas G. Kannampallil
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  2. Trevor Cohen MB ChB, PhD
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  3. David R. Kaufman PhD
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  4. Vimla L. Patel PhD, DSc, FRSC
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas G. Kannampallil .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. New York Academy of Medicine, New York, New York, USA

    Vimla L. Patel

  2. Arizona State University, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

    David R. Kaufman

  3. University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA

    Trevor Cohen

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Kannampallil, T.G., Cohen, T., Kaufman, D.R., Patel, V.L. (2014). Re-thinking Complexity in the Critical Care Environment. In: Patel, V., Kaufman, D., Cohen, T. (eds) Cognitive Informatics in Health and Biomedicine. Health Informatics. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5490-7_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5490-7_16

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