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Found 116 results
  1. Content Article
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    Practical guidance on the application of human factors in the investigation process is presented. Nine principles for incorporating human factors into learning investigations are identified: 1. Be prepared to accept a broad range of types and standards of evidence. 2. Seek opportunities for learning beyond actual loss events. 3. Avoid searching for blame. 4. Adopt a systems approach. 5. Identify and understand both the situational and contextual factors associated with the event. 6. Recognise the potential for difference between the way work is imagined and the way work is actually done. 7. Accept that learning means changing. 8. Understand that learning will only be enduring if change is embedded in a culture of learning and continuous improvement. 9. Do not confuse recommendations with solutions.
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    In many ways it is wrong to talk about the NHS restarting non-coronavirus care. A lot of it never stopped — births, for instance, cannot be delayed because of a pandemic. However, exactly what that care looks like is likely to be very different from what came before. There are more video and telephone consultations and staff treat patients from behind masks and visors. That is likely to be the case for some time, experts have told The Times. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 6 June 2020
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    The authors conducted a qualitative interview study with 22 accident investigators from different domains in Sweden. They found a wide range of factors that led investigations away from the ideal, most which more resembled factors involved in organisational accidents, rather than reflecting flawed thinking. One particular limitation of investigation was that many investigations stop the analysis at the level of “preventable causes”, the level where remedies that were currently practical to implement could be found. This could potentially limit the usefulness of using investigations to get a view on the “big picture” of causes of accidents as a basis for further remedial actions.
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    Healthcare safety is complex every day – yet the emergence of the novel coronavirus has made holes in the Swiss cheese of the system more apparent. UK psychologist James Reason’s now famous “Swiss Cheese Model” serves as a metaphor for this month’s Letter from America. As more details on the coronavirus emerge, and time enables reflection on what has transpired, deeper analyses will no doubt materialise. Knowledge is developing in real time, helping us see gaps in our safety barriers and providing valuable insight to the challenge of reducing harm. The Swiss Cheese model illustrates how latent weaknesses in the protective barriers that systems build exist and become more apparent after failures occur – if we look for them. COVID-19 is just such a test; it is amplifying the holes in today’s healthcare system. A recent New Yorker essay highlights the known weaknesses in healthcare visible long before COVID-19 – racial inequities, bureaucratic inefficiencies, drug shortages, under resourced public health initiatives and fiscal prioritisation to the detriment of preparedness. Others are more specific to the pandemic: lack of access to personal protective equipment and medical devices, supply chain disruptions, hording behaviours, misinformation and patients not seeking chronic, emergency or preventive care. The essay suggests that we should not seek to return to this “normal”, but to learn, revise and improve. Holes in processes to keep patients and workers safe are also expanding as the cheese melts. Healthcare worker illness, psychological strain and suicide are revealing fractures across US healthcare delivery that undermine the ability of clinicians to provide care as they work to keep patients and themselves safe. The US National Academies of Medicine has outlined an approach to protect clinicians’ wellbeing. Through a focus on organisational and national priorities, it aims to help sideline the negative after-effects that first responders to the COVID-19 crisis may experience through a call for funding, epidemiology and real-time support for providers. Efforts to diagnose COVID-19 are thick slices of cheese with a myriad of holes that affect both clinical and policy responses. As summarised in a recent commentary, the system response is a fundamental challenge: measurement is a mess, data are inconclusive, testing processes are inconsistent and results in some cases unreliable. While this state of affairs is rapidly changing, foundational concerns are likely to remain. Economic support for organisations and States rests on the data that are apt to be skewed, ineffective and counterproductive. The international disease codes used to document COVID-19 cases are being imprecisely applied. The authors of the commentary provide suggestions to impove the use of the diagnostic codes and thus the quality of the data collected. Actions in this area are needed to inform the research so we can understand what has happened and fund and design public health initiatives and reopening strategies that enable containment, testing and equitable treatment. As time passes, suggestions for improvement informed by national and local experience appear. Communities are painfully aware of the situation COVID-19 places them in. Experts there are contextually situated to address local challenges such as population instability due to unemployment, homelessness and food insecurity. A Health Affairs blog calls for strengthening the community-based workforce to assist in propping up vulnerable populations after disaster of any kind strikes, including COVID-19. Community health workers, volunteers and nonprofit organisations are highlighted as important players in testing and contact tracing strategy implementation, psychological support provision and establishment of the infrastructure communities need to face their specific challenges. It will take resources, tenacity and courage to facilitate and sustain community level COVID-19 response. Watching media coverage can be overwhelming but can also illustrate the complexity of addressing the disruptive tendencies of the coronavirus pandemic. Newspapers and healthcare media services can provide insight into the system-level complexity of the pandemic. These services are flagging and providing access to articles from the press or literature to provide a well-rounded collection of materials to track what is happening. It’s one way to remain keep abreast of the issues: who from racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups are impacted, what programmes and industries are being altered, where specifically in the US the virus touches, when the threat emerged to affect a particular segment of the population or workforce and why the connections between them all are important to consider. This is highlighted in a recent commentary in the Lancet, which illustrated some of the interacting components in a society responding to the threat of COVID. Tools such as these can assist in keeping us informed to combat weaknesses in failure barriers that emerge due to bias from listening to one outlet or seeking only one point of view. No matter what slice of the COVID-19 Swiss cheese sits on the plate in front of us – its holes are apparent. Experts are calling for coordinated system-wide action to prevent further loss of life and economic hardships. Other challenges are likely to emerge the longer COVID-19 influences lives. We all need to learn from the lack of success during the current response manifestation and use those insights to inform actions to prepare for the next virus wave. It will help to navigate future choppy, uncharted waters. To prepare for the 'new normal', courage to see value in failure is paramount. We should also proactively apply learnings based on what went well to better prepare organisations, systems and governments to close holes in the global approach before the next wave.
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    Patient Safety Learning works with experts on guidance around ventilator safety As part of the Government’s fast track approach to the development of ventilators, the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued guidance for clinical requirements based on ‘minimally acceptable’ performance. [2] Patient Safety Learning approached a range of human factors/ergonomics experts, asking for their input on the procurement of these new ventilators due to the involvement of new manufacturers, flexing of established guidelines and ‘safety in use’ issues. We asked them what they believed the key issues were in ensuring that these ventilators are safe in use. Experts did express concerns, identifying several risks: By moving at speed and developing non-standard ventilators (with some manufacturers with no prior experience in this area), we may unintentionally be designing a system than has numerous points of failure, increasing risk for patients. How ventilators can be used safely, particularly for staff redeployed in the pandemic who may be inexperienced or untrained in using them. How safe will ventilators be to operate for staff wearing full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)? Should patients die as a result of safety problems with ventilators, their deaths may not be identified as such, instead being attributed to Covid-19. There are already known safety issues relating to the use of ventilators. For example, there are currently multiple designs of machines used by the NHS, with different training requirements for different devices. We worked with this expert group, who provided detailed advice and guidance to address these risks. Patient Safety Learning then immediately developed proposals for urgent action to ensure that ventilators are safe for use with patients. We called for the healthcare system to work at a pace, together with manufacturers and experts in human factors/ergonomics, in order to minimise the usability safety risks. With our proposals, we provided details of what is required to ensure ventilator safety in use. Experts called for the MPV (Minimum Viable Product) specification to be revised to reflect ‘safety in use’ requirements with an immediate design, development and test sprint approach with human engineering user trials, task analysis and hazard analysis. NHS and Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) work quickly to design new guidance So, what happened next? Initially there was a swift response. NHS England and NHS Improvement asked the CIEHF to provide designers and manufacturers with guidance aiding the rapid production of new ventilators. CIEHF subsequently designed guidance, sending it to NHS England within 48 hours. The guide, Human Factors in the Design and Operation of Ventilators for Covid-19, was then to be sent to manufacturers of ventilators in the UK.[3] Soon after CIEHF also developed a ‘rapid and easy to use’ testing protocol to assist manufacturers with testing. CIEHF have developed overarching advice and guidance and testing protocol. To support this, a detailed set of user requirements has been developed by Dr Sue Whalley Lloyd and Karen Priestly. They have worked with, and adapted, Yorkshire Water’s general human factors guidance and have produced a detailed Engineering Specification: Ventilator HF Design guidance. We need to address the risk to patient safety We’ve seen an enormous amount of activity these past few weeks towards the design and production of new ventilators; something that would usually take months or even years. However, there are still serious concerns about the process to date and outstanding safety issues. It’s vital that we meet the urgent need for additional ventilators in the UK, however it cannot be at the cost of patient safety. Concerns about the Government’s response The Government has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks over its handling of this issue. This has been, in part, because it decided not to order ventilators through the EU’s procurement scheme. This has resulted in a more urgent need for scaling up production within the UK.[4] There have also been questions raised around the number of ventilators required. Initial estimates of 30,000 have since been cut down by more than a third to 18,000. [5] [6] [7] Efforts to engage more UK manufacturers in the production of new ventilators have also proved to be complicated, with only one new model to date, Penlon’s ESO2 device, receiving approval from the MHRA.[8] While this covers a provisional order for 5,000 ventilators, there are a significant number of other applications still waiting the regulatory clearance that will be needed to meet the revised 18,000 target. Meanwhile, another provisional order has been forced to withdraw, as a model from the Renault and Red Bull Formula 1 teams was found to not be suitable for treating patients with Covid-19. [9] “Don’t bother, you’re wasting your time” There has been increasing clinical concern about the Government’s decision to move away from standard specification and known manufacturers. Some of these concerns have related to the minimum specification for the ventilator programme set out by the MHRA, suggesting that it will not lead to the production of machines that are suitable for treating Covid-19 patients. Dr Alison Pittard, Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, has raised concerns about the minimum specifications.[10] The MHRA guidance states that “it is proposed these ventilators would be for short-term stabilisation for a few hours”.[11] Dr Pittard has said that the group of medical professionals that advised the Government on this in March suggested that these machines should be capable of working for the a patient’s full time in intensive care.[12] She noted that: “If we had been told that that was the case, that the ventilators were only to treat a patient for a few hours, we’d have said: “don’t bother, you’re wasting your time. That’s of no use whatsoever.”[13] Compounding this issue, the standards that currently exist in this area are not formal regulatory requirements. The MHRA state that: “They are not formal regulatory requirements, but many are harmonised against regulatory requirements. Consider them as helpful advisory standards for now. MHRA will lead an exercise to define which can be ‘safely’ relaxed for this emergency situation.”[14] This is not simply a technical issue. If we can’t ensure ventilators are being produced to the right standards, to deliver the right care and to be used safely, then it will inevitably result in errors and could ultimately cost lives. Critical safety questions for the Government Considering these concerns, Patient Safety Learning believes that it is vital that the Government responds to the following critical ventilator safety questions: Safety standards Are the standards for ventilators issued to manufacturers fit for purpose? Are MHRA ensuring that these standards are being applied? These standards are not currently formal regulatory requirements. Should they be? Utilising expertise Has the expert guidance on ventilator safety in use, developed by CIEHF and others, been issued to manufacturers by NHS England and NHS Improvement or the MHRA? If yes, are manufacturers required to apply this guidance? Is it advisory or is it mandatory? Are manufacturers who comply with the guidance and usability protocols given an advantage in the procurement process? Are regulators signing off new ventilators against this guidance? Delivery, communication and timescales Currently only one of the manufacturers of new ventilators has received approval. What is the timescale for delivery of the new ventilators and how does this match estimated demand? How are the NHS and MHRA communicating with patients, staff and the public to assure them that the new ventilators will be safe in use? Monitoring performance How will ventilator ‘safety in use’ be monitored and reported on? Are NHS providers and clinicians being asked to strengthen their incident reporting, particularly where manufacturers have developed novel approaches? References Gov.uk, Call for business to help make NHS ventilators, Last Accessed 15 April 2020. Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System, 10 April 2020. Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors, Human Factors in the Design and Operation of Ventilators for Covid-19, Last Accessed 1 April 2020. The Guardian, UK missed three chances to join EU scheme to bulk-buy PPE, 13 April 2020. The Guardian, How the UK plans to source 30,000 ventilators for the NHS, 26 March 2020. The Guardian, How close is the NHS to getting the 18,000 ventilators it needs? 14 April 2020. Health Service Journal, NHS needs a third fewer ventilators than forecast, says Hancock, 5 April 2020. Gov.uk, Regulator approves first Ventilator Challenge device, 16 April 2020. The Guardian, UK scraps plans to buy thousands of ventilators from Formula One group, 14 April 2020. Financial Times, Ventilator standards set out for UK makers ‘of no use’ to Covid patients, 15 April 2020. Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System, 10 April 2020. Financial Times, Ventilator standards set out for UK makers ‘of no use’ to Covid patients, 15 April 2020. Ibid. Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Rapidly Manufactured CPAP System (RMCPAPS), 29 March 2020.
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    After working last week and caring for patients who were pending COVID-19 swab results, four days later I woke feeling unwell. A slight cough, tired, pale, feeling freezing cold but no temperature and generally feeling rubbish. This carried on for a few days, I then ended up with common cold-like symptoms and a residual cough. Normally, I probably wouldn’t call in sick, I would have just carried on. Following current guidance, I called in sick and was advised to take the next 7 days off. At this point testing was unavailable for NHS staff. I was sat at home not knowing if I had the virus or not while my colleagues were having to pick up the slack. If I am completely honest, I was glad I didn’t have to go back. I was anxious that we didn’t have the right personal protective equipment (PPE), systems for donning and doffing were not in place, we didn’t know what to expect over the coming days, training for redeployed nurses and doctors was not happening. I just didn’t want to go back anyway. I felt a coward. Over the coming days while I was at home, my husband then became ill, then my youngest son, then the eldest. All with mild symptoms, but still no idea if we had it or not. While I was off, I was contacted by the ‘staff welfare team’. It was just a quick phone call to see how I was, but it made all the difference. I felt like I wasn’t just a ‘worker’ off sick, I was someone that they cared about and were obviously keen to make sure I was coming back! This has never happened before. Reluctantly, I return to work, but it was like I had stepped into a different Trust. Wards with infected patients were labelled as RED wards; huge signs were outside the wards with designated places to don and doff PPE. There were clear guidance on which PPE to wear displayed in poster format. There were green footsteps and red footsteps on the floor enabling you to know which area you were in. PPE safety officers had been deployed to reassure and ensure all departments have enough stock. It felt safer. Leadership at all levels is being tested at this time. Where I work in Brighton, we are invested in ‘Patient First’. This is headed up by our Kaizen Team. All staff are trained in differing levels of quality improvement (QI). All wards and departments have improvement huddles, where they can raise a mini project and see it through. We all speak the same QI language. I dread to think what would happen if we didn’t have this in place during this awful time. By having this process, it has empowered ALL staff to speak up and give permission for frontline staff to improve processes where they work. Our executive leadership team have done an amazing job in such a small amount of time. They have increased ITU capacity, they have reshaped rotas, redeployed staff, re employed staff, transformed patient pathways (red and green pathways), pooled staff, set up systems for donations… There has been so much achieved in a short amount of time; the top-level organisation has been incredible. All this in seven days. They have been phenomenal at strategy, planning and overall management and leadership of what I call ‘the big stuff’. What they are not so good at is the ‘small stuff’. We, frontline workers are brilliant at this. The practicalities of work – where can I don and doff, where the bins should be, how do I know this bed has been cleaned? What do we do when someone dies? Can relatives visit? How do we know who is who in PPE? How can we make sure we don’t contaminate clean areas? How do we take blood now? We know what needs to be improved, we know what is missing. It’s the small details that worries staff, it’s the small details that can save lives. As I was walking seeing patients from different wards, I heard staff saying – this isn’t right – we could improve that. They can raise a ticket on the huddle board and they could initiate the change. If the change could be replicated else where in the Trust, the Matron or ward manager can then raise it at the Bronze meeting, the bronze would then raise it to Silver and then implemented. I often hear that we use a top down, bottom up approach but never really thought it works, as there is so much red tape involved in healthcare. Quite often frontline ideas never reach the top level and they fall flat. This time it’s very different. To test the system, you need to stress the system. This system of QI and communication is working. We are all learning together. None of us have dealt with a pandemic before. Frontline staff have been given the permission to improve the way real work is done, quickly and safely, while the top-level management are concentrating on strategy, planning, implementation and co-ordination of services. We are listening to each other, we are rapidly changing and adapting, the whole Trust is in a constant state of PDSA cycles. It feels dynamic, proactive and controlled. If this pandemic happened 10 years ago in our trust, I am convinced that we would not be in the position we are now. We have enough intensive care beds, we have the capacity to expand further, we are ready.
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    "In one of the most vivid scenes in the Home Box Office (HBO) miniseries 'Chernobyl' (among many vivid scenes), soldiers dressed in leather smocks ran out into radioactive areas to literally shovel radioactive material out of harm's way. Horrifically under-protected, they suited up anyway. In another scene, soldiers fashioned genital protection from scrap metal out of desperation while being sent to other hazardous areas. Please don't tell me that in the richest country in the world in the 21st century, I'm supposed to work in a fictionalized Soviet-era disaster zone and fashion my own face mask out of cloth because other Americans hoard supplies for personal use and so-called leaders sit around in meetings hearing themselves talk. I ran to a bedside the other day to intubate a crashing, likely COVID, patient. Two respiratory therapists and two nurses were already at the bedside. That's 5 N95s masks, 5 gowns, 5 face shields and 10 gloves for one patient at one time. I saw probably 15-20 patients that shift, if we are going to start rationing supplies, what percentage should I wear precautions for? Make no mistake, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) is loosening these guidelines because our country is not prepared. Loosening guidelines increases healthcare workers' risk but the decision is done to allow us to keep working, not to keep us safe. It is done for the public benefit – so I can continue to work no matter the personal cost to me or my family (and my healthcare family). Sending healthcare workers to the front line asking them to cover their face with a bandana is akin to sending a soldier to the front line in a t-shirt and flip flops. I don't want talk. I don't want assurances. I want action. I want boxes of N95s piling up, donated from the people who hoarded them. I want non-clinical administrators in the hospital lining up in the ER asking if they can stock shelves to make sure that when I need to rush into a room, the drawer of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) I open isn't empty. I want them showing up in the ER asking 'how can I help' instead of offering shallow 'plans' conceived by someone who has spent far too long in an ivory tower and not long enough in the trenches. Maybe they should actually step foot in the trenches. I want billion-dollar companies like 3M halting all production of any product that isn't PPE to focus on PPE manufacturing. I want a company like Amazon, with its logistics mastery (it can drop a package to your door less than 24 hours after ordering it), halting its 2-day delivery of 12 reams of toilet paper to whoever is willing to pay the most in order to help get the available PPE supply distributed fast and efficiently in a manner that gets the necessary materials to my brothers and sisters in arms who need them. I want Proctor and Gamble, and the makers of other soaps and detergents, stepping up too. We need detergent to clean scrubs, hospital linens and gowns. We need disinfecting wipes to clean desk and computer surfaces. What about plastics manufacturers? Plastic gowns aren't some high-tech device, they are long shirts/smocks... made out of plastic. Get on it. Face shields are just clear plastic. Nitrile gloves? Yeah, they are pretty much just gloves... made from something that isn't apparently Latex. Let's go. Money talks in this country. Executive millionaires, why don't you spend a few bucks to buy back some of these masks from the hoarders, and drop them off at the nearest hospital. I love biotechnology and research but we need to divert viral culture media for COVID testing and research. We need biotechnology manufacturing ready and able to ramp up if and when treatments or vaccines are developed. Our Botox supply isn't critical, but our antibiotic supply is. We need to be able to make more plastic Endotracheal tubes, not more silicon breast implants. Let's see all that. Then we can all talk about how we played our part in this fight. Netflix and chill is not enough while my family, friends and colleagues are out there fighting. Our country won two world wars because the entire country mobilised. We out-produced and we out-manufactured while our soldiers out-fought the enemy. We need to do that again because make no mistake, we are at war, healthcare worker s are your soldiers, and the war has just begun." First published on www.telegram.com/news
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    Several trust procurement leads have expressed frustration with the government’s response to covid-19, with HSJ being told of shortages of crucial personal protective equipment, unpredictable deliveries and a lack of clarity from the centre NHS Supply Chain, which procures common consumables and medical devices for trusts, has been “managing demand” for an increasing number of PPE and infection control products for since the end of February to ensure “continuity of supply”. Some products, like certain polymer aprons, are unavailable altogether because of the increased demand and disrupted supply caused by the covid-19 outbreak. One procurement lead told HSJ: “They aren’t supplying enough, they aren’t fulfilling orders. It’s completely chaotic.” Another said his trust had “just enough to manage for the time being.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 20 March 2020
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