Niall Downey is no stranger to high-stress environments, having performed at the top level in two seemingly unconnected industries – aviation and medicine. After training as a cardio-thoracic surgeon, he then became a commercial airline pilot where he noticed that, although both sectors are safety-critical, only one had a safety-management system in play. Niall’s book Oops! Why Things Go Wrong argues that if the health sector adopted the aviation industry’s tools and techniques to mitigate risk, it would reduce financial waste while improving patient and staff satisfaction.... Read more
Niall Downey is an Irish entrepreneur and author whose two very disparate high-stress careers have made him an expert in error management. He began his professional life as a cardio-thoracic surgeon before retraining as a commercial airline pilot, and believes that the tools and techniques he learnt in the cockpit are transferrable to the health sector.
Niall’s knowledge of cognitive overload, decision making, accountability, high performance and system blindness will resonate with tech teams, executives and innovators, or any organisation seeking high performance and low error. Niall is an advocate for systemic change in other industries all over the world besides healthcare. His book Oops! Why Things Go Wrong, written during the Pandemic, examines the issue of error in both industry and society generally.
Both aviation and healthcare are safety-critical industries, with their managers – the pilots and surgeons – navigating a high-tech environment. The human brain, on the other hand, weighs 3% of the body’s weight and burns 25% of its energy. As a result of many millennia of evolution, it has learned to conserve energy by taking shortcuts, which necessitate a margin of error – human error. As Niall puts its, our brains running “caveman software” in a 21st-century environment.”
This margin of error lies outside the margin of safety in our high-speed world, meaning that accidents – at great emotional and financial cost – do happen.
For this reason, Niall Downey believes that the error management system used to fly planes should be adapted for hospitals and clinics. Healthcare outcomes will improve if error management is implemented in the healthcare system, cutting costs and making patients and staff happier. And Niall believes that other industries will benefit from the wisdom of the aviation industry.
Niall has already applied the same principles to businesses in the construction, finance and sporting worlds, and has expanded these theories to other industries in Oops! Why Things Go Wrong. His experience blends mental health, systems thinking and real-world consequences, and should be a priority for governments, organisations and institutions worldwide.
Niall Downey is a keen cyclist and competed on a National and International Pro-Am level for many years, and acted as Race Doctor at many international events for six years.
Human error is inevitable, especially in today’s fast-changing, high-tech world. Exploring the neuroscience of decision-making and cognitive overload
When something goes wrong, how far back do you go to work out why? Learn how the aviation industry isn’t afraid to return to the root of the system in order to create a stronger, safer version 2.0 rather than the easy option of blaming the last person...
The tech revolution has opened up a gulf between the work environment and the human mind. How to achieve psychological safety, adaptability and system resilience when your brain is still running on Caveman OS
The traffic-light system keeping the aviation industry safe.
This is your captain speaking: how the culture of the cockpit can help you fly high in the boardroom. Decision making, executive leadership, control, delegation, checklists, ego management and feedback loops are all cleared for takeoff
Humans are built to fail, but not to accept failure. Embracing systems-level thinking and error management to build organisations that learn and improve. Don’t fail fast, fail safely and effectively