The International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care will feature five tracks of educational sessions. Learn more about each of these tracks.
Digital Health
Sponsored by Thrive
The Digital Health track focuses on a range of health software and digital technology used by clinicians, patients, caregivers, and the general public. Areas include artificial intelligence and machine learning, consumer (OTC) mobile and wearable health apps and prescribed software as a medical device (SaMD), telehealth platforms, clinical decision supports, electronic and personal health records and management portals, home health technologies, and other digital health software applications and interfaces.
Track chairs: Jeremy Schwark & Anthony Andre
Education and Simulation
The education and simulation track focuses on the intersection between HF/E and modern simulation capabilities within the healthcare context. This includes human-systems integration of simulation into modern medical education, use of simulation for skills training, testing of new technologies for in-hospital or at-home health systems design. Also addressed in this track are the use of AR/VR technologies in the development and application of education and training in the pursuit of patient, provider, and organizational outcomes.
Track chairs: Jennifer Winner & Rich Simonson
Hospital Environments
The Hospital Environments Track focuses on the social-technical challenges, the human machine partnerships, and the unique complexity that is healthcare delivery today. This track's content strives to present practical examples of how to apply clinically informed HF/E principles and best practices to design processes, procedures, tools and technology in the healthcare setting in order to facilitate better clinical outcomes. We aim for a mix of traditional projects and cases studies, as well as wider experiences and perspectives from both HF/E practitioners and clinicians in implementing human factors and ergonomics principles at the clinical front line. Topics include, but are not limited to: (1) Physical considerations, such as environmental design and layout, postural ergonomics, equipment design, information displays, alarms and safe patient handling equipment. (2) Cognitive considerations, including learning, memory, judgment, decision making, and cognitive workload. (3) Emotional/motivational factors, such as burnout and stress. (4) Sociocultural factors such as teamwork, communication, production pressures, and the interaction between health care providers and their environment.
Track chairs: Myrtede Alfred & Oren Guttman
Medical and Drug Delivery Devices
Sponsored by Emergo
The Medical and Drug-Delivery Device Track focuses on the application of HF and UX principles and methods to design, evaluate, and validate medical devices (hardware and software) and combination drug products. Devices covered include those intended for use in highly specialized clinical environments, as well as home use and over-the-counter (OTC) devices.
This year's track will strive to include content geared towards advanced practitioners that pushes the boundaries of current practice and conventional thinking, as well as best-practice and topics geared towards developing practitioners and companies new to the discipline.
Track chairs: Kate MacNamee & Eric Shaver
Patient Safety Research and Initiatives
Sponsored by BlackHagen Design
The Patient Safety Research and Initiatives Track focuses on the multidisciplinary collaboration between researchers, patients and healthcare providers to improve the quality and safety of health care. Relevant topics include health equity and healthcare disparities, teamwork and team performance, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs; including in-hospital transmission of COVID-19), healthcare resilience, novel patient safety analysis and investigation methods, innovative and sustainable solutions for patient safety, and other systems approaches to addressing hazards to patients.
Track chairs: Changwon Son & Megan Gregory