Key result
Human factors engineering, drawing from disciplines like psychology and design, can be used to optimize human performance and improve the safety and efficiency of surgical and anaesthetic care.
Why the study?
Patient safety in the operating theatre relies on effective teamwork, but human factors engineering principles to improve surgical safety and efficiency are often dismissed as common sense.
Human factors engineering, drawing from psychology, design, and engineering, can be utilized to improve the safety and efficiency of surgical and anaesthetic care.
Encourages integration of human factors into anaesthetic workflows; leaves open prospective trials to confirm outcome benefits.
Safety of patients in the operating theatre relies on a cordial and efficient working relationship between all members of the theatre team. A team that communicates well, defines the roles of its members and is aware of their limitations will provide safe patient care. In this review, we will examine how human factors engineering - the science of how to design processes, equipment and environments to optimise the human contributions to performance - can be used to improve safety and efficiency of surgery. Although these are often dismissed as 'common sense', we will explain how these solutions emerge not from healthcare but from diverse disciplines such as psychology, design and engineering.
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Marshall et al. (2020) conducted a review in Surgical and anaesthetic care safety. Human factors engineering was evaluated. Human factors engineering, drawing from disciplines like psychology and design, can be used to optimize human performance and improve the safety and efficiency of surgical and anaesthetic care.
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