Human Factors in the Wild

Abstract

The Institute of Medicine (2005) identified Human Factors (HF) engineering as an approach to promote better healthcare system design. The use of HF in healthcare has evidently delivered improvement in safety, quality, and productivity. Although existing literature shows the application of HF in practice, there is limited discussion of the integration of HF into healthcare operations, and the science of HF and its mechanism to deliver improved outcomes. This gap makes it difficult for healthcare professionals and management to see how HF can benefit their organization. Even if the potential benefits of integrating HF into healthcare organizations are understood, there is a lack of guidance on how to best deploy full-time HF practitioners. Despite the vast number of hospitals and healthcare systems around the world, only a few have actively and successfully engaged HF practitioners as part of their internal operations. This panel invites four healthcare HF practitioners, with diverse backgrounds and sub-specialties (Micro-, Physical-, and Macro-Ergonomics) to share their roles and contributions to their organization, and discuss their pathway to becoming integrated into their healthcare organization. This panel will provide guidance on how healthcare organizations can deploy and achieve the full benefit of their full-time HF practitioner (e.g., which unit/functional department to position HF and proper expectations of HF). Additionally, the panel will discuss insights for educators and budding HF practitioners on what it takes to advance their career in this challenging, yet literally life-saving industry.