PreAccident Investigation Podcast

Corey Pitzer, a safety practitioner focused on fatality prevention and HOP, discusses reframing workers as problem‑solvers. He explores tensions between engineering/energy-based thinking and systemic new‑view approaches. They highlight designing systems that absorb variation, global shifts in safety practice, and real incidents that show why system design matters.

Todd interviews Professor David Woods about recent NASA mishaps and a growing cultural shift toward "cheaper, faster" decision-making that sacrifices safety. They explore how past safety gains have lost vitality, highlight cascading modern risks (the "messy nine"), and argue for mutual assistance and revitalized resilience practices. Wood's most recent writing on this is available in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists called:  Cheaper, Faster, and Who Gives a Damn about Anything Else. The episode connects space, aviation, cloud outages, and AI-driven engineering to show why coordinated foresight and cross-disciplinary cooperation are essential to prevent far-reaching harm in today’s complex systems.

Todd Conklin, HOP and safety systems expert who champions resilience and learning from everyday work. He explains failing safely and designing recoverable systems. He contrasts adaptive frontline work with rigid procedures. He highlights learning from normal work, adding rescueability, and how leadership can change safety culture. He also touches on AI risks to safety.

A restorative workshop centered on RaDonda Vought's account and the Emory Hospital event is previewed. The conversation explores how normal performance variability can cascade into serious failures. They contrast healthcare complexity with other industries. Storytelling as a tool to reveal trade offs and spot weak signals is highlighted. The goal is learning practical ways to build resilience across complex systems.

Host Todd Conklin interviews fatigue expert Mark Rosekind, PhD about his path from sleep research to roles at NASA, the NTSB, and NHTSA, and how sleep science applies across transportation and safety-critical work. Key takeaways: think of sleep like a bank account (sleep debt), "start in the black" before major schedule changes, the benefits of strategic naps, and systemic ways organizations can reduce fatigue to improve performance, health, and safety.

Discussion of VUCA and why uncertainty can drive better innovation and safety. Anecdotes from travel, airports, and Olympic coverage lighten the talk. Examples from aviation and healthcare show how diverse information improves decisions. Practical push to lean into uncertainty and widen whose expertise is heard.

A lively debate about why safety innovation has stalled and where fresh ideas are actually coming from. They explore who is pushing practice forward, pockets of progress in pediatric intensive care, and how regulatory and cultural pressures choke experimentation. The conversation looks outward to sports, behavioral economics, and brave organizations reimagining work.

This episode tells the real-life story of how the Society for Patient Safety and a network of children’s hospitals used learning teams, proactive safety huddles, and simulations to reduce unplanned extubations in neonatal ICUs — cutting rates by 60% and preventing thousands of deaths. It covers the data, the frontline-led solutions, the narrowing of racial disparities, and an invitation to a small conference in Santa Fe to learn and share improvement practices.

Ann Lyren, a patient safety leader who works with pediatric hospitals to strengthen safety culture. She and others preview a Santa Fe workshop exploring how ordinary performance variability combined to cause a tragic case. They discuss charting contextual conditions, operational pressures like throughput, and cross-industry learning with practical tactics for identifying and responding to accumulating risks.

A deep dive into what accountability really means in safety: clarity, roles, and shared responsibility. Discussion challenges the idea that safety is only frontline workers’ problem and explores how leaders must enable success. The episode contrasts accountability with discipline and stresses having clear accountability conversations before incidents occur.