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Superstitions are beliefs that are not supported by empirical evidence, or beliefs that persist in the face of contradictory empirical evidence (Zebb & Moore, 2003). Both cultural and personal superstitions are pervasive in the general population (Vyse, 1997) and appear to influence not only the clinically ill, but healthy individuals as well as successful sportspeople, businesspeople, and politicians. The history of superstition research is traced from the Skinner's seminal (1948) explanation of superstitious learning as the result of accidental pairings of events, or adventitious conditioning. Contemporary human superstitious learning research (e.g. Matute, 1994, 1995) has demonstrated that non-contingent delivery of reinforcers can lead to illusion of control if the person is actively making instrumental responses to gain those reinforcers. Superstitious beliefs appear to play a role in clinical anxiety disorders such as OCD, social phobia, and PD. Specifically, avoidance of threatening situations and engaging in in-situation safety behaviours (e.g. Salkovskis, D. M. Clark & Gelder, 1996), prevent non-occurrence of the feared outcome from disconfirming the threat belief and eventual fear extinction. Quite the opposite, instrumental attempts to prevent imminent catastrophe lead non-occurrence of the feared outcome to be perceived as confirmation that the threat is real. A human avoidance learning paradigm (P. Lovibond, 2006; P. Lovibond et al., 2008) was adapted for a laboratory investigation of superstitious learning using a threat-relevant stimulus (mild electric shock). A series of five experiments using undergraduate participants demonstrated that participants" expectations of task structure modulated their tendency to develop maintained stereotyped responding. Approximately half the participants maintained a chosen instrumental response to a target cue and maintained higher threat beliefs towards that cue even though it had never been paired with shock. Participants who did not maintain an ...

Objective: Manual data-entry of handwritten laboratory test requests into electronic information systems has implications for data accuracy. This study sought to identify the types and number of errors occurring for handwritten serology test requests received from outpatient clinics. Methods: A 15-day audit at a serology laboratory in Sydney, Australia, compared the content of all transcribed serology outpatient test requests in the laboratory information system with the handwritten request form. Results: One or more errors were detected in 67/627 (10.7%) audited requests ( N=68 errors). Fifty-one of the errors (75.0%) were transcription errors: the wrong test was transcribed in 40/68 cases (58.8%) – ten of these occurred when the abbreviations 'HBsAb' and 'HBsAg' were confounded for one another – and transcribed requests were missing a test in 11/68 cases (16.2%). The remaining 17 non-transcription errors (25.0%) described request forms not signed by the ordering clinician, mislabelled specimens, and wrong tests due to computer algorithm errors. Conclusions: Manual data-entry of handwritten serology requests is an error-prone process. Electronic ordering has the potential to eliminate illegible handwriting and transcription errors, thus improving data accuracy in hospital information systems.

This project aimed to assess the impact of electronic ordering systems, on the quality use of pathology services across six hospital sites and different pathology departments, for the following areas:- the legibility and completeness of laboratory test orders and the impact on Central Specimen Reception work processes (Quality of test orders). - the volume and mix of tests ordered examined by such factors as Diagnosis-related Groups (DRGs), adjusted for clinical activity where appropriate, and the prevalence of add-on and repeat testing (Effectiveness). - the timeliness of the pathology laboratory process (Turnaround time). - the impact of pathology performance (e.g., laboratory test turnaround times) on the duration of patient stay in the emergency department (Patient outcome).The project also produced a benefits realisation framework, made up of performance indicators, that can be used to guide the assessment of electronic ordering in a pathology service and to monitor what works (or doesn't work), where, and in what circumstances. The project was funded by an Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, Quality Use of Pathology Program grant.