PreAccident Investigation Podcast
Aug 15, 2026 · 31 min · 9 segments
Part two of a deep conversation with Professor David Woods examines five decades of safety practice and argues for a stronger science base, foresight, and continual revitalization. Topics include the…
Because the other thing that's happened is the world keeps getting more complex.
And that's why I'm always talking about, especially in patient safety, is do you... can you produce an order of magnitude effect? I w- I'm looking for 10 times in effect, not a percent.
Right? And we're like, "No, I'm looking for an order of magnitude effect." Given the nature of the systems, the change, and the potential harm as our systems grow in capability, the harm when they break goes up by orders of magnitude, too.
Right? That's what I've said to you before, right? When things go wrong now, or the potential for harm when things go wrong is at least two orders of magnitude bigger than the maximum impact of our traditional safety initiatives.
They came t- they let us do it, and they gave us reasonable funding within the normal organizational constraints, and we... and it was pretty successful, right? It would be a percent improvement, not an order of magnitude improvement.
... we're now in, we're now in the seventh month, right? And we have set a record, right? We are, we are way past the max, the max number.
We're definitely gonna hit two and a half orders of magnitude in measles cases, right? As a, as a can- uh, canary in the coal mine on how the exposure to harm is increasing at the same time that our systems grow in capability.
Well, but it is kind of the answer in a way, right? I m- or it's, it's, it's a vital part of the answer.
Because the other thing that's happened is the world keeps getting more complex.
And that's why I'm always talking about, especially in patient safety, is do you... can you produce an order of magnitude effect? I w- I'm looking for 10 times in effect, not a percent.
Right? And we're like, "No, I'm looking for an order of magnitude effect." Given the nature of the systems, the change, and the potential harm as our systems grow in capability, the harm when they break goes up by orders of magnitude, too.
Right? That's what I've said to you before, right? When things go wrong now, or the potential for harm when things go wrong is at least two orders of magnitude bigger than the maximum impact of our traditional safety initiatives.
They came t- they let us do it, and they gave us reasonable funding within the normal organizational constraints, and we... and it was pretty successful, right? It would be a percent improvement, not an order of magnitude improvement.
... we're now in, we're now in the seventh month, right? And we have set a record, right? We are, we are way past the max, the max number.
We're definitely gonna hit two and a half orders of magnitude in measles cases, right? As a, as a can- uh, canary in the coal mine on how the exposure to harm is increasing at the same time that our systems grow in capability.
Well, but it is kind of the answer in a way, right? I m- or it's, it's, it's a vital part of the answer.
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