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Abstract
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Human factors have an established role in the management of critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) and emergency department (ED). This notion has undergone vigorous research in most of the developing countries with its incorporation in the training programmes, but its practice in low middle-income countries residency programmes seems bleak. The International Ergonomics Association proposed its consensus-based definition for human factors as "scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of the interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design to optimise human well‐being and overall system performance."
The field of human factors plays an important role in critically analysing mental workload, physical demands, team dynamics, work environments, and device design needed to complete a task optimally; and improving safety and effectiveness. By understanding how we are likely to make errors, we can create an environment that helps us to make the right decisions, so that patient-safety and reliability are incorporated into every clinical operation and process in the emergency department. According to a study, an emergency physician performs on average 67 discrete tasks in a 180-minute interval and is interrupted (defined as an interruption lasting more than 10 seconds) more than 30 times! The practice of staff intruding physicians, while they are dictating or processing patient information, is well documented and widespread. Although not all interruptions are inherently detrimental, some being beneficial to the physician with regards to a deteriorating condition of a patient or a high alert laboratory result. These frequently innate interruptions to the ED have been documented not only to be a contributing factor to medical errors, and drug dispatch errors; but, also lead to fatigue, job stress and sleep-deprivation. Interruptions during patient consultation have also been accredited to lack of patient satisfaction and breach of confidentiality as well.4 A physician is required to be attentive, vigilant and productive which becomes an uphill task, if their flow of thought is interrupted resulting in decreased job efficiency and an error-prone environment...
Language: en |