A review of cognitive aids and their application to emergency management in Australia

Decision-making in disasters and major crises faced by emergency services globally is a difficult combination of science and art to master. To assist decision-makers in these environments, a number of cognitive aids have been developed and subsequently adopted by individuals and organisations alike. However, these aids vary according to their intent and the context in which they are intended to be applied. This review explores the use of cognitive aids in the context of emergency management and explores how existing knowledge regarding the use of cognitive aids from other industries may be translated to emergency management. An iterative literature review of academic and industry material related to cognitive aids during incident and crisis response across a broad range of international emergency service and other industries within the last 20 years was completed. Ultimately, cognitive aids are not a silver bullet when it comes to decision-making in the emergency management context. The correct tool (that is correctly designed) must be correctly applied by trained and competent end users. The Australian emergency management sector may benefit from future research exploring how these existing tools adhere to the good practice principles identified in this study.