1. Challenges And Opportunities For Improving Patient Safety Through Human Factors And Systems Engineering.
- Author
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Carayon P, Wooldridge A, Hose BZ, Salwei M, and Benneyan J
- Subjects
- Delivery of Health Care organization & administration, Humans, United States, Delivery of Health Care methods, Ergonomics methods, Medical Errors prevention & control, Medication Systems, Hospital organization & administration, Patient Safety standards, Quality Assurance, Health Care organization & administration
- Abstract
Despite progress on patient safety since the publication of the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report, To Err Is Human, significant problems remain. Human factors and systems engineering (HF/SE) has been increasingly recognized and advocated for its value in understanding, improving, and redesigning processes for safer care, especially for complex interacting sociotechnical systems. However, broad awareness of HF/SE and its adoption into safety improvement work have been frustratingly slow. We provide an overview of HF/SE, its demonstrated value to a wide range of patient safety problems (in particular, medication safety), and challenges to its broader implementation across health care. We make a variety of recommendations to maximize the spread of HF/SE, including formal and informal education programs, greater adoption of HF/SE by health care organizations, expanded funding to foster more clinician-engineer partnerships, and coordinated national efforts to design and operationalize a system for spreading HF/SE into health care nationally.
- Published
- 2018
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