The safety researcher
David Woods considers the following two concepts in his definition of resilience: •
graceful extensibility: the ability of a system to develop new capabilities when faced with a surprise that cannot be dealt with effectively with a system's existing capabilities •
sustained adaptability: the ability of a system to continue to keep adapting to surprises, over long periods of time These two concepts are elaborated in Woods's
theory of graceful extensibility. Woods contrasts resilience with
robustness, which is the ability of a system to deal effectively with potential challenges that were anticipated in advance. The safety researcher
Richard Cook argued that
bone should serve as the
archetype for understanding what resilience is in the Woods perspective. Cook notes that bone has both
graceful extensibility (has a soft boundary at which it can extend function) and
sustained adaptability (bone is constantly adapting through a dynamic balance between creation and destruction that is directed by mechanical strain). In Woods's view, there are three common patterns to the failure of
complex adaptive systems: •
decompensation: exhaustion of capacity when encountering a disturbance •
working at cross purposes: when individual agents in a system behave in a way that achieves local goals but goes against global goals •
getting stuck in outdated behaviors: relying on strategies that were previously adaptive but are no longer so due to changes in the environment == Resilient Health care ==