CoMind Lab
Improving diagnoses by understanding the collaborative and cognitive processes of medical teams
The CoMind lab is part of the Diagnostic Quality Lab at the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) with a Starting Grant to Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Juliane Kämmer (project number TMSGI1_218047). Our research group seeks to provide a clearer understanding of how decision-making in medical diagnostics and other high-risk areas can be improved to help enhance diagnoses in the long term.
Incorrect medical diagnoses are unfortunately common and some of them can have serious consequences for patients. However, there is a limited understanding of the circumstances under which such errors occur and of how effective collaboration within the diagnostic team can help prevent them.
We are specifically interested in better understanding diagnosis as a team-based activity. For example, we investigate the interplay between cognitive and collaborative processes and how to best time team phases during the diagnostic process. For this, we engage in a continuous dialogue with practitioners to get input for our (basic) research and develop output (such as trainings) that is valuable for practice.
We rely on a wide array of methods, ranging from behavioral experiments, simulations, meta-analyses, and ethnography. We leverage theoretical approaches from a variety of disciplines and collaborate with an international interdisciplinary network.
Publications
5 key publications
Freytag, J., Stroben, F., Hautz, W. E., Schauber, S. K., & Kämmer, J. E. (2019). Rating the quality of teamwork—a comparison of novice and expert ratings using the Team Emergency Assessment Measure (TEAM) in simulated emergencies. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, 27, 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-019-0591-9
Hautz, W. E.*, Kämmer, J. E.*, Schauber, S. K., Spies, C. D., & Gaissmaier, W. (2015). Diagnostic performance by medical students working individually or in teams. JAMA, 313, 303–304. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2014.15770
Hautz, W. E., Kämmer, J. E., Hautz, S. C., Sauter, T. C., Zwaan, L., Exadaktylos, A. K., Birrenbach, T., Maier, V. Müller, M., & Schauber, S. (2019). Diagnostic error increases mortality and length of hospital stay in patients presenting through the emergency room. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, 27, 54. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-019-0629-z
Kämmer, J. E., Ernst, K., Grab, K., Schauber S. K., Hautz, S. C., Penders, D., & Hautz, W. E. (2024). Collaboration during the diagnostic decision making process: When does it help? Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 37, e2357. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2357
Seelandt, J. C., Boos, M., Kolbe, M., & Kämmer, J. E. (2023). How to enrich team research in healthcare by considering five theoretical perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1232331. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1232331
Team
Juliane Kämmer (Principal Investigator)
Juliane Kämmer is Assistant Professor at the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Bern funded by an SNSF Starting Grant. In her research on team decisions under uncertainty and diagnostic quality, she combines theories and methods from psychology, cognitive science and medical education research. Her research provides insights that aim to lead to better team decisions, such as in the form of better medical diagnoses.
Juliane is co-leader of the Diagnostic Quality Lab and a member of the Virtual Inselspital Simulation Lab at the University of Bern. In addition to the Starting Grant funding, Juliane has received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to study team decision making under uncertainty (No. 894536, “TeamUp”). She has also received funding as a co-applicant from the BeLEARN Association to develop an interprofessional team training in virtual reality.
She obtained her PhD in psychology from the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Human Development in 2013. Trained as a psychologist, she has taught and mentored students of various disciplines including psychology, medicine, nursing education and economy at various German universities and the MPI for Human Development. From 2020 until 2022, she conducted research as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Bern. In 2023, she transitionally held the Chair of Social and Communication Psychology at the University of Göttingen.
Links: Google Scholar, Bluesky , Inselspital, LinkedIn
Download: Full CV, Publication list
Postdoc
Maike Isaac will join the CoMind lab as the Postdoctoral ethnographic researcher. She earned her PhD from the Department of Sociology at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, in 2024. Maike is a passionate ethnographer, focusing on gender, race, and migrant status and how these (ascribed) identity markers intersect and manifest in team dynamics in healthcare settings. For her PhD, she studied ethnographically how migrant men from West Asia and Africa are recruited and trained as elder care workers in Germany. She explored how their public image as supposedly hypermasculine and “dangerous” men affects their work experience, relationships with colleagues, and positions within their teams. During her doctoral studies, Maike was a fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, where she joined an international team of ethnographers studying care work, migration, and ageing. Her research has been supported by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec, the Jean Monnet Centre Montréal, and the Waterloo Centre for German Studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Prior to her PhD studies, Maike studied International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (LL.M.) at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) and Ethnology (B.A.) at Leipzig University. From 2016 to 2018, she worked as the Education Specialist for Gender Equity and Sexual Violence Prevention at Harvard University. From 2021 to 2022, she supported the Equity Officer at the South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences.
PhD candidate
Lara Morscheck is a PhD candidate at the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Bern, and member of the CoMind Lab. Her doctoral research focuses on deepening the understanding of how teamwork can both support and hinder medical diagnostic processes.
From the beginning of her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Lara has actively engaged in diverse research environments, gaining extensive experience in the collaboration of various teams. Notably, she worked as a student assistant for renowned group researchers Prof. Margarete Boos and Prof. Stefan Schulz-Hardt, where she obtained valuable firsthand insights into group dynamics and decision-making processes (Frontiers in Psychology, 2023). Throughout her studies, Lara developed a strong specialization in group processes, with a particular interest in group decision-making under uncertainty—a topic that continues to shape her academic and professional pursuits.
Master student
Clemens Schöne is writing his Master thesis in Human Factors in the CoMind Lab. During his thesis, he will develop a pilot study that investigates how team communication might help counteract availability bias during medical diagnosis. Clemens has a background in Computer Science and Human Factors. As a Scrum Master with a solid foundation in (software-)team development, he has successfully guided four software teams through their formative stages (storming, norming, performing), leveraging both leadership and collaboration to optimize team performance. Building upon his practical skills, he expanded his knowledge by pursuing a Master’s degree in Human Factors at the Technical University Berlin, incorporating psychological theory into his work. As he is transiting into the healthcare IT sector, he aims to explore innovative ways to improve diagnostic processes in clinical settings for his Master’s thesis. Specifically, he intends to investigate how peer-challenging diagnostics—akin to the 'rubber duck debugging' method in software development—can enhance diagnostic accuracy and decision-making in medicine.
Student Reserach assistant in Psychology
Theresa Halbritter
Student Research assistant for Ethnographic Research
Mara Hofer
Collaborations
National collaborations
Prof. Dr. Wolf Hautz
Prof. Dr. Thomas Sauter
PD Dr. Tanja Birrenbach
Prof. Dr. Tanja Manser (FHNW)
PD Dr. Nadine Bienefeld-Seall (ETH Zürich)
International collaborations
Prof. Dr. Laura Zwaan (Erasmus MC, Rotterdam)
Prof. Dr. Silvia Mamede (Erasmus MC, Rotterdam)
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Gaissmaier (University of Konstanz)
Prof. Dr. Olga Kunina-Habenicht (TU Dortmund University)
Prof. Dr. Stefan Schauber (University of Oslo)
Dr. Stefan Herzog and Dr. Ralf Kurvers (Max Planck Institute for Human Development)
Prof. Dr. Markus Feufel (Technische Universität Berlin)
News
November 2024: Lara Morscheck starts her PhD at the CoMind Lab. The CoMind Lab participates at the 18th International Workshop on Behavioural Science Applied to Healthcare in Stavanger, Norway.
September 2024: The CoMind Lab participates in this year´s Awareness Week Patient Safety with a Webinar on “The importance of teamwork in the diagnostic process. What´s the evidence?”. https://patientensicherheit.ch/aktionswoche-patientensicherheit/
August 2024: Official kick-off of the CoMind lab
November 2023: The CoMind lab receives funding from the SNSF as a Starting Grant to Dr. Juliane Kämmer. https://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/218047
Ausschreibung Masterarbeit - Ethnographie
Qualifikation: Master
Thema: Teamprozesse und Teamdynamiken
Für: Master Studierende in den Sozialwissenschaften, Organisationswissenschaften, Management, Psychologie, o.ä.
Ort: Bern/ Aarau/ Basel
Start: August 2025 oder später (nach Absprache), methodisches Training Mai-Juli 2025
Bewerbungsfrist: 09. April 2025
Betreuung: Dr. Maike Isaac
Stundenumfang: nach Absprache
«Teamprozesse in der Notaufnahme – Eine ethnographische Studie»
des CoMind Lab der Universitätsklinik für Notfallmedizin (Inselspital) der Universität Bern
Worum geht es im Projekt?
Das CoMind-Labor ist Teil des Diagnostic Quality Lab der Universitätsklinik für Notfallmedizin der Universität Bern, Schweiz, und wird vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds (SNF) mit einem Starting Grant an Prof. Dr. Juliane Kämmer finanziert. Das CoMind Lab möchte ein klareres Verständnis dafür vermitteln, wie die Entscheidungsfindung in der medizinischen Diagnostik und anderen Hochrisikobereichen verbessert werden kann, um die Diagnosequalität langfristig zu verbessern.
Teams und Teamdynamiken spielen nachweislich eine entscheidende Rolle im Diagnoseprozess. Bislang ist jedoch wenig bekannt darüber, wie Teamprozesse in fluiden Teams von Ärzt*Innen, Pflegekräften und Patient*Innen funktionieren und wie Teamarbeit im speziellen Kontext der Notaufnahme effektiver gestaltet werden kann. Durch eine ethnographische Studie unter der Leitung von Dr. Maike Isaac, basierend auf nicht-teilnehmenden Beobachtungen, Interviews und Fokusgruppen, sollen die Interaktionen, Hierarchien und Entscheidungsprozesse aller Akteur*Innen (medizinisches Personal und Patient*Innen), die in einer Notaufnahme verkehren, erkundet werden. Ziel der Studie ist es, eine dichte Beschreibung der bestehenden Teamdynamiken in der Notaufnahme zu generieren, die letztendlich einen Beitrag zur verbesserten Diagnosequalität in der Notfallmedizin leistet.
Aufgaben
Die ausgeschriebene Masterarbeit wird in die Datenerhebung und Analyse der ethnographischen Studie eingebettet sein. Der/Die Student*In wird sich an der Datensammlung durch eigene Beobachtungen in der Notaufnahme und der Durchführung von Interviews beteiligen. Ausserdem wird der/die Student*In die KI-unterstützte Transkription der Interviews durchführen, und diese in Hinblick auf eine im Vorfeld vereinbarte Forschungsfrage kodieren und analysieren.
Wir bieten
- Enge Betreuung in einem motivierten, interdisziplinären Team bestehend aus den Disziplinen Psychologie, Notfallmedizin und Soziologie.
- Gelegenheit, praktische Erfahrung in der Erhebung und Auswertung qualitativer Daten zu sammeln.
- Praktisches Training in der Anwendung ethnographischer Methoden.
- Die Möglichkeit, anhand der erhobenen Interviewdaten eine Masterarbeit zu verfassen.
Voraussetzung
- Eingeschrieben in einem Master-Programm an einer Schweizer Universität im Bereich der Sozialwissenschaften (z.B. Soziologie, medizinische Anthropologie, Sozialanthropologie), Organisationsverhalten, Psychologie, Management oder verwandten Fachrichtungen.
- Starkes Interesse an qualitativer Forschung und der Analyse qualitativer Daten.
- Ein Auge für Details und ein hohes Mass an Zuverlässigkeit.
- Interesse am Thema der Teamprozesse/-Dynamiken.
- Die Fähigkeit Schweizerdeutsch zu verstehen/sprechen.
Betreuung
Die Betreuung erfolgt je nach Absprache entweder durch Dr. Maike Isaac (Soziologin, Institut für Notfallmedizin, Universitätsklinik Bern) und/oder durch eine Professur an dem Institut, an welchem die Masterarbeit zur Prüfung eingereicht werden wird.
Beginn
Voraussichtlich August 2025. Das methodische Training aller in die Datensammlung involvierten Forscher*Innen findet in mehreren ca. 2-stündigen Blöcken zwischen Mai und Juli 2025 statt. Die Teilnahme an diesem Training ist für den/die Masterstudent*In Pflicht.
Bewerbung
Bis zum 9. April 2025 als ein einziges PDF Dokument, inkl. Lebenslauf, Zeugnisse und ein paar Sätzen (max. 250 Wörter) zum Forschungsinteresse/ der Motivation an maike.isaac@. unibe.ch