Take a Load Off: Understanding, Measuring, and Reducing Cognitive Load for Cardiologists in High-Stakes Care Environments

Purpose of Review: This review sought to highlight the foundational principles of cognitive load for pediatric cardiologists and surgeons in high-stakes care environments. Recent Findings: Measurement of cognitive load is evolving beyond retrospective and subjective numeric rating scales to include multimodal physiologic measurements that scale with cognitive load. Frequent interruptions, distractions, and task switching that characterize high-stakes cardiology environments increase cognitive load. Excessive cognitive load is increasingly associated with tangible consequences for patients, including medical errors. Summary: Cognitive load theory is based on the idea that working memory resources are finite. When working memory demands exceed available capacity, such as under high cognitive load, task performance suffers. Psychometric, behavioral, and physiological methods can be used to measure cognitive load. Strategies for reducing cognitive load in high-stakes cardiology environments include increasing automation, improving visualization, leveraging machine learning for clinical decision support, promoting crisis resource management, utilizing simulation, and optimizing human factors/systems engineering. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.