Definition
The tendency to accept an automated output in place of the judgment it was supposed to support. It is strongest exactly when the operator has the least capacity to resist it: late in a shift, under volume, when the output is plausible and fluent and appears in a queue that looks pre-screened. The operator glances, assumes the system reconciled the labs, and signs.
It matters because it converts a queuing defect into an incident. A system that places a dangerous order into a routine signing queue is relying on a person to catch it, and a person at the end of a shift catches it less and less often. The failure is not carelessness; it is the predictable response of a finite operator to a plausible draft. That is why the control is structural and not exhortative: a synchronous hard stop that requires a documented rationale before the order exists works regardless of how tired the operator is, while a reminder to "pay attention" does not.
Law IX already states the shape: human oversight is a control only if the human can alter system state. Automation bias names the load that oversight is placed under, and intervention specification is what the control looks like when it is designed for the tired operator rather than the attentive one.
Hypothetical example
- An order set auto-populates with a home medication despite an acute creatinine jump, and sits in a batch the physician reviews at the end of a fourteen-hour shift.