Human Factors

Human factors are a scientific discipline which focuses to help people do their best work. The learning module teaches the importance of human factors with the famous case study of death of pilot’s wife ‘just a routine operation’. The module discusses that healthcare professionals are among the most highly trained, motivated and diligent professionals. Despite their education and desire to deliver the best care possible, health care professionals can be set up for mistakes by poorly designed medical devices, care processes and fragmented systems. Requesting healthcare professionals to “try harder” or “be more careful” will not protect them against errors. So, why is it that medical errors are among the top concerns and patients do not consistently receive evidence-based care? The learning modules further explains why do errors happen? Human beings have limited attention spans and perform worse when tired and can only focus on one thing at a time, and often forget things. So, when systems ask human beings to go beyond these, failures can occur. It discusses solutions based on human factors principles making it “easy to do things right and hard to do things wrong.” So, when errors do occur, they are less likely to lead to patient harm. After completion of the training module, the user will complete the related assessment questions to demonstrate their understanding and knowledge of concepts.