Human Factors in Health Care. To reduce or prevent such harms, the health care environment must be designed with human limitations and abilities in mind. This is the focus of human factors, a scientific discipline that aims to help people do their best work, improve resilience and overall system performance, and minimize errors.
In health care, human factors specialists seek to improve people-system interactions for everyone involved – health care professionals, patients and family members.
This is the focus of human factors, a scientific discipline that aims to help people do their best work, improve resilience and overall system performance, and minimize errors. Human factors-based solutions make it “easy to do things right and hard to do things wrong.”
Human Factors in Action: Examples from the Field 1 Safe Medication Storage. Multidose insulin pens are required to be placed in patient-specific containers in a medication room, per both Johns Hopkins and Joint Commission requirements. 2 Improving Safety of Cardiac Surgery. ... 3 Preventing Infusion Pump Errors. ...
In health care, human factors specialists seek to improve people-system interactions for everyone involved – health care professionals, patients and family members. Their work can be focused on enhancing the safety and usability of a single product – such as a medical device – or on improving an entire care delivery process or organizational structure (e.g. leadership, supply-chain management, etc.). These specialists seek to understand the myriad factors that affect performance of the system — the physical environment; tasks, tools and technologies involved; and the organizational conditions in which the work occurs — and then redesign systems to improve patient safety and team performance.
This is the focus of human factors, a scientific discipline that aims to help people do their best work, improve resilience and overall system performance, and minimize errors. Human factors-based solutions make it “easy ...
Health care professionals are among the most highly trained, driven and conscientious professionals. So, how is it that medical errors are a major public health problem and patients do not consistently receive evidence-based care?
There were instances in which the tubing from an infusion pump would come into contact with the pump’s touch screen, leading to accidental changes in the rate of infusion. Working with a human factors engineer, the team added a Plexiglas, see-through guard that enables clinicians to move the tubing without accidentally changing the pump’s settings.