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If you have up to an hour to spare, these 'micro credentials' are great for topping up your learning. The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors (CIEHF) online bitesize modules will offer you short, focused and easily digestible content. Delivered through CIEHF's online learning platform, they'll provide the flexibility to learn at your own pace, to your schedule and from wherever you choose. Whether you're a professional seeking to improve workplace ergonomics or a curious learner eager to understand how humans interact with their surroundings, these modules are designed to inspire you by providing real-world examples, case studies and best practice that can be applied across many sectors. You'll get insights into identifying and addressing human factors challenges, ultimately contributing to improved safety, efficiency and overall wellbeing.

Patient safety, patient and family experience, and staff wellbeing are the joint responsibility of anyone working within health and social care. An understanding of how Humans Factors and Ergonomics can improve our interactions with systems and processes can often lead to improved patient and staff outcomes. If you are responsible for implementing Human Factors and Ergonomics programmes within a health and social care setting – or if you just want to understand more about how the principles of human factors might apply to your role – this practical introduction will help you navigate your way around Human Factors and Ergonomics approaches within the healthcare setting. Key features include: Aligned to the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors professional competencies, this book shows how these can be framed within real-life practice. Packed with case studies and helpful tips you can use in your day-to-day practice. Clear structure showing the different levels of a system with specific chapters on organisation, people, equipment and environment. Fully illustrated to facilitate your learning. The authors discuss the book in this interview with Class.

Patient safety, patient and family experience, and staff wellbeing are the joint responsibility of anyone working within health and social care. An understanding of how Humans Factors and Ergonomics can improve our interactions with systems and processes can often lead to improved patient and staff outcomes. If you are responsible for implementing Human Factors and Ergonomics programmes within a health and social care setting – or if you just want to understand more about how the principles of human factors might apply to your role – this practical introduction will help you navigate your way around Human Factors and Ergonomics approaches within the healthcare setting. Key features include: Aligned to the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors professional competencies, this book shows how these can be framed within real-life practice. Packed with case studies and helpful tips you can use in your day-to-day practice. Clear structure showing the different levels of a system with specific chapters on organisation, people, equipment and environment. Fully illustrated to facilitate your learning.

Human factors and ergonomics in healthcare is an important discipline that considers both the physical and mental characteristics of healthcare workers, as well as the complex interactions within which organisations exist.

This webinar from THIS Institute asks; what does the evidence tell us about the role of human factors and ergonomics in healthcare, and why haven’t the approaches been more widely adopted? 

Digital health (DH) brings considerable benefits, but it comes with potential risks. Human Factors (HF) play a critical role in providing high-quality and acceptable DH solutions. Consultation with designers is crucial for reflecting on and improving current DH design practices. Authors of this study published in Applied Ergonomics, investigated the general DH design processes, challenges, and corresponding strategies that can improve the digital patient experience (PEx). Highlights: Key design phases in the digital healthcare industry are preparation, problem thinking, problem solving, and implementation. At an abstract level, design processes are similar across domains, but the emphasis on specific design phases is different. Contextual, practical, managerial, and commercial challenges often due to differences between disciplines and stakeholders. Design challenges and strategies often co-exist and represent two sides of the same coin. Stakeholder groups common to the digital health design process are clients, designers, domain experts, and end users. Clients, as decision-makers, often value clinical outcomes and business achievements more than user experiences.

This infographic on Good Work Design by the Chartered Institute for Ergonomics & Human Factors (CIEHF) outlines how a three-phase, human-centric approach to designing work can result in work that people enjoy and can excel at. It lists the elements of what good work looks like to ensure both the organisation and its workers can improve performance. To go alongside the infographic, the authors presented a webinar examining how to design good work and looking at the some of the strategies involved.

A recent paper (from clinicians and Human Factors specialists at the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust) jointly supported by Elsevier and BJA Education clarifies what Human Factors (HF) is by highlighting and redressing key myths.  The learning objectives from the paper are as follows: Identify common myths around HF Describe what HF is Discuss the importance of HF specialists in healthcare Distinguish the importance of a systems-based approach and user-centred design for HF practice.  It explains that HF is a scientific discipline in its own right, a complex adaptive system very much like healthcare. Its principle have been used within healthcare for decades but often in an informal way.  A link to the summary of the article on Science Direct and further links to purchase the paper can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2058534923000963?dgcid=author 

Clive Flashman, Patient Safety Learning's Chief Digital Officer, shares his presentation slides from the Health Plus Care 2022 conference. The presentation slides include basic principles, how to involve the patient and public in design, key issues and Clive's ten top tips for digital health innovators.

All Systems Ergo, invites Human Factors specialists from around the world to share their experience of incorporating Human Factors into their field of work and the impact it has had to support patient outcomes and improve care within healthcare. Hosted by Fran Ives, Chartered Human Factors Specialist, the bi-weekly podcast discusses a number of key human factors topics including transportation, patient safety and product design, as well as personal stories of industry professionals’ inspiring career journeys. Clinicians in the thick of Human Factors Fran talks to Dr Neil Spenceley, Clinical Director, Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow and Dr Carl Horsley an Intensivist working at Middlemore Hospital in Aukland, New Zealand. Neil and Carl talk about incorporating Human Factors into their every day clinical work, how they do it and why they are so passionate about the science. From librarian and healthcare assistant to Human Factors specialist Fran speaks to Jane Higgs and Siobhan Burns about their transition into Human Factors as a second career. Jane is currently a PhD student at Loughborough University and moved into Human Factors following a career as a librarian. Siobhan Burns is an Ergonomics and Human Factors Adviser at University Hospitals Birmingham and started her career as a Healthcare Assistant before moving to Manual Handling Training and then Human Factors. Hear their experiences, what their university courses did and didn't prepare them for and listen to the utter passion they have for the science. Exploring SEIPS with Professor Pascale Carayon Fran speaks with Pascale Carayon, a Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Pascale talks about her vision for the SEIPS (System Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety) framework, which she has been working on for many years. During the conversation, Pascale gives some valuable advice to those who are new to using SEIPS such as focussing on the interactions between the elements of the model, such as the organisation, the task, and the tools. Future possible developments for the framework were considered such as making a connection between patient safety and well-being such as stress and burnout. Human Factors across the Atlantic Fran welcomes Ken Catchpole to discuss the differences between the American and British healthcare systems and their effects on healthcare Human Factors. Fran and Ken discussed the differences between the US and the UK in terms of healthcare human factors integration, with both countries having a similar level of integration. They concluded their discussion with the importance of supporting Human Factors specialists in solo roles. Discovering the field of Human Factors: A conversation with Steve Tipper Fran speaks to Steve Tipper, a Chartered Human Factors Specialist working in the Patient Safety Team at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust. The two explore what Human Factors integration into a healthcare organisation looks like. Exploring healthcare Human Factors: Leveraging experiences from transportation to improve care Fran talks to Steve Shorrock, a Chartered Psychologist and Chartered Ergonomics and Human Factors Specialist who has experience in the transportation industry. Steve discusses why it is important to integrate Human Factors into healthcare and what can be learned from his transportation experience. He believes that Human Factors should be integrated into all aspects of healthcare, from design to implementation and that Human Factors is essential for safety, efficiency, and effectiveness in healthcare.

New developments in artificial intelligence (AI) are extensively discussed in public media and scholarly publications. While in many academic disciplines debates on the challenges and opportunities of AI and how to best address them have been launched, the human factors and ergonomics (HFE) community has been strangely quiet. In this paper, Gudela Grote discusses three main areas in which HFE could and should significantly contribute to the socially and economically viable development and use of AI: decisions on automation versus augmentation of human work; alignment of control and accountability for AI outcomes; counteracting power imbalances among AI stakeholders. She then outlines actions that the HFE community could undertake to improve their involvement in AI development and use, foremost translating ethical into design principles, strengthening the macro-turn in HFE, broadening the HFE design mindset, and taking advantage of new interdisciplinary research opportunities.

In this article, Stephen Shorrock, Chartered Ergonomist and human factors specialist, shares some some insights on the concept of ‘human error and the idea of ‘honest mistakes’. He outlines the problem with thinking of errors as ‘causing’ unwanted events such as accidents, arguing that this approach ignores all of the other relevant ‘causes’, especially in high-hazard, safety-critical systems,

To improve the safety and quality of healthcare, we try to understand and improve how healthcare providers accomplish patient care "work." This work includes synthesising information from a patient's history and physical examination or from a handoff, performing tests or procedures, administering medications and providing information so that patients can make the best choices for themselves. Sometimes this work flows very well and everyone is pleased with the results, but sometimes this work does not unfold in the way that was anticipated. This article, originally published in Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory, argues that efforts to improve healthcare work will not succeed without recognising that there is a difference between a theoretical construct of "work-as-imagined" and the reality of "work-as-done".

This research report by the Energy Institute is intended for senior management and specialists charged with designing and implementing indicators for major accident hazards safety, or responsible for operating such systems. The report provides an introduction to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) human factors key topics, and proposes ways in which these might be measured. It also sets out a process for identifying relevant PIs. The research report incorporates findings related to current thinking on safety PIs, in particular for human factors, how organisations currently monitor human factors in practice, and what processes are used to ensure appropriate indicators are selected.

This is the recording of a presentation given by Niall Downey at a recent Patient Safety Management Network (PSMN) meeting. Niall considered why error is inevitable, how it affects many different industries and areas of society and, most importantly, what we can do about it. Join the Patient Safety Management Network Do you work in patient safety and want to join the Patient Safety Management Network? You can join by signing up to the hub today. If you are already a member of the hub, please email [email protected] Related reading Find out more about Niall’s new book, Oops! Why things go wrong: Understanding and controlling error. You can also find a recent blog written by Niall on this subject on the hub.

Alarms are signals intended to capture and direct human attention to a potential issue that may require monitoring, assessment or intervention. They play a critical safety role in high-risk industries such as healthcare, which relies heavily on auditory and visual alarms. While there are some guidelines to inform alarm design and use, alarm fatigue and other alarm issues are challenges in the healthcare setting. The automotive, aviation, and nuclear industries have used the science of human factors to develop alarm design and use guidelines. This study in the journal Patient Safety aimed to assess whether these guidelines may provide insights for advancing patient safety in healthcare.

This article in the journal Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery for the Clinician looks at the importance of recognising and addressing human factors in surgery. It explores human factors in the context of optimising individual performance, enhancing team working to improve patient safety, and creating better working lives for healthcare professionals across surgery and medicine.