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Showing results for tags 'Ergonomics'.
Found 139 results
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Content Article‘Systems thinking’ is often recommended in healthcare to support quality and safety activities but a shared understanding of this concept and purposeful guidance on its application are limited. Healthcare systems have been described as complex where human adaptation to localised circumstances is often necessary to achieve success. Principles for managing and improving system safety developed by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL; a European intergovernmental air navigation organisation) incorporate a ‘Safety-II systems approach’ to promote understanding of how safety may be achieved in complex work systems. Authors of this paper, published by BMJ Open Quality, aimed to adapt and contextualise the core principles of this systems approach and demonstrate the application in a healthcare setting.
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Content ArticleHuman Factors (Ergonomics) is the study of human activity (inside and outside of work). Its purpose as a scientific discipline is to enhance wellbeing and performance of individuals and organisations. A number of different definitions of Human Factors exist. The key principles are the interactions between you and your environment both inside and outside of work and the tools and technologies you use. This webpage from NHS Education Scotland (NES) provides links to a number of useful Human Factors resources used in healthcare. Topics include: Training Culture Leadership Systems Thinking Communication.
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Content ArticleEnhanced Significant Event Analysis (enhancedSEA) is a NHS Education for Scotland (NES) innovation which aims to guide healthcare teams to apply human factors thinking when performing a significant event analysis, particularly where the event has had an emotional impact on staff involved.Follow the link below for:guidance on how to perform enhancedSEA the updated report format, new Guide Tools, a short e-learning module basic educational resources on human factors science and practice.Although enhancedSEA was developed and tested with primary care teams the approach is also highly suitable for any health and social care setting.
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Content ArticleThe purpose of this guide is to help leaders and managers in businesses and organisations make their office workspaces safe for staff returning to work and reduce the transmission of the COVID-19 virus. This process begins with putting together a competent team and undertaking a risk assessment and staff survey to inform decision-making. Businesses are encouraged to consider the workplace as a whole system so that in mitigating a risk in one part of the work system, unintended consequences are not created in another. For example, new ways of work lead to increased workload/stress and reduced collaborative working.
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Content ArticlePart 6 of this series of blogs about human factors and investigations in healthcare discusses the 'How' and the 'Why'. How did the person die or was injured is different from understanding why it happened? At first this appears to be a pedantic, minor issue, but, as (hopefully) we shall see from this blog, it’s a vital distinction. Question How did the plane crash? Answer It was hit by a missile. Question Why was a missile launched, is a vastly different question. Question How was it that the pedestrian was hit by the car? Answer It was due to the driver not seeing them – but why did they not see them is the question. Without the why – you can’t do the intervention. Most investigations done stop at the how – few get to the why, especially in medicine, especially with root cause analysis.
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Content ArticleDr Susan Whalley-Lloyd, Senior Lecturer in Human Factors/Ergonomics at Staffordshire University, discusses how the learning and research opportunities evolving from the coronavirus pandemic will add to our human factors knowledge base and gives us a unique opportunity to achieve new research in human factors and patient safety.
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Content ArticleDr Susan Whalley-Lloyd, Senior Lecturer in Human Factors/Ergonomics at Staffordshire University, explains in this short video presentation why a human factors course is important for patient safety and what the course at Staffordshire University covers.
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Content ArticleIn this commentary published in the Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management, Gurses et al. describe how human factors and ergonomics (HFE) can contribute to the COVID-19 pandemic response. Specifically, the authors provide an example of how HFE methodologies informed workflow redesigns implemented as part of COVID-19 pandemic preparations in an academic paediatric ambulatory clinic. They identify key mechanisms and areas where HFE can contribute to and improve the effectiveness of a pandemic response: Just-in-time (JIT) training development, adapting workflows and processes, restructuring teams and tasks, developing effective mechanisms and tools for communication, engaging patient and families to follow the recommended practices (e.g., social distancing, revised hospital visitation policies), identifying and mitigating barriers to implementation of plans, and learning from failures and successes to improve both the current and future pandemic responses.
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Content ArticleThe purpose of this document, from the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, is to provide health and social care teams with advice and guidance on the human-centred design of work procedures such as written instructions, checklists or flow charts during this period of 'crisis management' in response to COVID-19 and to support the design and re-design of care services and new ways of working. Implementation of the guidance will contribute to safer and easier to use procedures, which better support how people work and reduce risks to themselves, patients, carers and others.
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Content ArticleThe purpose of this document is to provide designers and manufacturers of ventilators with overarching advice and guidance on the key themes for consideration and specific Human Factors and Ergonomic (HFE) issues in a period of “crisis management” requiring rapid design and production.
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Content ArticleThis National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) booklet presents information concerning how better design can be used to make the dispensing process safer in community pharmacies, dispensing doctor practices and hospital pharmacies. There are a number of new factors that will impact on the dispensing process, such as: electronic prescription services; auto-id and automation technologies; more responsibilities for pharmacy technicians; and enhanced pharmacy services. These factors have been incorporated into these safer design recommendations Organisations, managers and healthcare workers involved in dispensing medicines should use this booklet as a resource to help introduce new initiatives to further minimise harms from medicines.
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Content ArticleCalls to integrate human factors and ergonomics (HFE) within healthcare and patient safety have become increasingly frequent in the last few years.This editorial from Waterson and Catchpole decscribes some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings that sometimes surround HFE.
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Human Factors for Patient Safety Course
Patient Safety Learning posted an event in Community Calendar
Patient Safety is an essential part of health and social care that aims to reduce avoidable errors and prevent unintended harm. Human Factors looks at the things that can affect the way people work safely and effectively, such as the optimisation of systems and processes, the design of equipment and devices used and the surrounding environment and culture, all of which are key to providing safer, high quality care. New for September 2020, this part-time, three year, distance learning course, from the Centre of Excellence Stafford, focuses specifically on Human Factors within the Health and Social Care sectors with the aim of helping health and social care professionals to improve performance in this area. The PgCert provides you with the skills to apply Human Factors to reduce the risk of incidents occurring, as well as to respond appropriately to health, safety or wellbeing incidents. Through the study of Human Factors, you will be able to demonstrate benefit to everyone involved, including patients, service users, staff, contractors, carers, families and friends. Further information -
Content ArticleThis podcast, published by Coda, covers a wide array of topics, from PPE to simulation. Martin Bromiley (Human Factors expert), talks about the ways human factors affect teams and safety and share communications tactics to help alleviate potential issues.
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Content ArticlePresentation from WHO's 'A Decade of Patient Safety 2020-2030: Formulating Global Patient Safety Action Plan' patient safety meeting in Geneva.
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Content ArticleThis was the first Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) Pharmaceutical Sector group organised event, where the systems and human factors challenges of labelling and packaging were discussed by a wide-ranging audience across the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors.
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Content ArticleHuman factors and ergonomics (HFE) approaches to patient safety have addressed five different domains: usability of technology; human error and its role in patient safety; the role of healthcare worker performance in patient safety; system resilience; and HFE systems approaches to patient safety.
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Patient safety in oral surgery
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Dentist
This article from the British Association of Oral Surgeons (BAOS) highlights that these clinicians perform a high volume of multi-site complex procedures, on anxious patients who are frequently conscious, that have the potential for error to occur. -
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MedLed: What is systems thinking?
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Organisational
In this article, Human Factors Consultant, Jayne Higgs, talks about systems thinking. She highlights the different components that contribute to systems thinking (including human factors) and argues that this approach can aid a move away from a narrow-perspective blame culture. -
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RCOG: Video briefing on human factors and situational awareness
Claire Cox posted an article in Maternity
Each baby counts is the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologist's national quality improvement programme to reduce the number of babies who die or are left severely disabled as a result of incidents occurring during term labour. Watch the Each baby counts human factors video for information on how to address issues within your unit. -
Content ArticleBen Tipney and Vikki Howarths' presetation on Human Factors in practice. This presentation covers: an introduction to human factors human factors training implementation of human factors in practice new initiatives.
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10 quality indicators for clinical consultation (2016)
Dr Gordon Caldwell posted an article in Clinical leadership
The process of clinical consultation defines diagnosis and is crucial to patient safety and patient outcomes However the process is frequently weak resulting in care erring off path. These indicators (taken from a paper in Postgraduate Medical Journal) could provide a way to identify weaknesses and areas for improvement.- Posted
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Content ArticleOver the last 20 years, the Royal College of Art has been a fierce proponent of the role of design to improve and save lives, leading the debate on the efficacy of design thinking when applied to real societal needs. Nowhere is this better exemplified than by its impact on healthcare and patient safety. With increasing pressure on the national healthcare system, public services and provisions have to meet ever more stringent financial, resource and efficiency objectives. The Royal College of Art has demonstrated how systems-led thinking and a design approach to understanding the user’s needs can effectively reduce infection and medical error, and improve treatment spaces and patient communication.
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Museum of failure
Claire Cox posted an article in Miscellaneous
Museum of Failure is a collection of failed products and services from around the world. The majority of all innovation projects fail and the museum showcases these failures to provide visitors a fascinating learning experience. Every item provides unique insight into the risky business of innovation.The idea for the museum was born out of frustration. ‘I was so tired of reading and hearing the same boring success stories, they are all alike’ says the museum’s curator, Samuel West. ‘It is in the failures we find the interesting stories that we can learn from.’ Innovation and progress require an acceptance of failure. The museum aims to stimulate discussion about failure and inspire us to have the courage to take meaningful risks.Could we learn from our 'failures' in healthcare in the same way? -
Content ArticleTo address increasing patient demands and acuity, the Calgary Health Region is renovating the intensive care units (ICU) at three of their adult acute care sites. Before finalising the design plans, mock-up rooms were created at two of the sites according to several proposed room designs in order to identify potential issues during the design phase of the project. All necessary equipment was included within each of the two mock-up rooms so as to nearly replicate a functioning ICU. Evaluations of equipment, room layout and conflicts were accomplished using patient simulation of a cardiac arrest, an acutely ill patient, a palliative care patient and the admission of a new patient. Digital videos, think aloud audio tracks and extensive debriefing sessions were combined and analyzed. Specific category issues were identified including the articulating arms, visibility of the patient monitors, equipment usability, collisions with equipment, and communication issues. Elaboration of each issue and presentation of design recommendations is given.
