TABLE I.

PHASES IN CRITICAL DECISION METHOD

Phases	Description
Incident Identification	The participant defines the scope of the incident and is refined by the interviewer, if necessary. For example, in this study the details about patients’ secondary information and demographic information were noted but not probed in detail.
Timeline Verification	The investigator repeats a timeline of events to elicit accurate information about decisions information. This step is aimed at getting a clear, refined and verified overview of the incident structure, identifying key events and segments.
Deepening	Using the timeline, the interviewer probes into more details about decision points, judgments and the decision making process. This phase makes sure that the implicit information and cognitive processes are evoked.
“What If” Queries	In this final phase, the interviewer asks hypothetical questions to identify implicit cues relevant to understanding the decision making processes. For example, the interviewer asks, “What knowledge or tool could have helped in a situation like this?”