Re-thinking Complexity in the Critical Care Environment

Abstract

The term ``complexity'' is used to define tasks or systems ranging from complicated to intractable, and to generally mean ``not simple.'' As noted by a Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, ``a variety of different measures would be required to capture all our intuitive ideas about what is meant by complexity and by its opposite, simplicity'' [1]. But, it is generally acknowledged that complexity is context-dependent [2], and subjective [1]. While the implications for complexity has been discussed within the context of several settings [3--8], some of these discussions have been met with skepticism (e.g., [9, 10]), provoking responses that the key ideas of complexity theory used in healthcare are often distorted ideas, ``trotted out in the guise of complexity'' [9], and are merely the ``emperor's new toolkit'' [10].