Emergency Medicine Australasia | 2021
Is a nudge all we need to promote deliberate clinical inertia and thoughtful clinical decision making?
Abstract
Deliberate clinical inertia is the art of doing nothing as a positive response. Individual clinicians can promote deliberate clinical inertia through teaching, re‐framing the act of ‘doing nothing’ as ‘doing something’ and engaging in shared decision making. Behaviour change on a larger scale requires a systematic approach. Nudging is a subtle change to the decision‐making context to prompt specific choices. A nudge unit is a team of relevant professionals who engage with various multidisciplinary teams within a health service who help test and implement nudge interventions in a clinical environment. A nudge unit could be used to design environments to prompt clinicians to re‐think before ordering unnecessary tests or treatments. Nudge units could improve knowledge translation, support continuous quality improvement and help build a learning health system. They could also boost collaboration and empower staff to evaluate their workplace decision‐making frameworks.