Events

Human Factors and Patient Safety in Radiology Study Day

Learning Objectives

Introduction to Human Factors and Patient Safety

Human factors is an alien concept to most medics. In the initial session, we explore the meaning of this concept and its 3 central tenets. We will look at how a Human Factors approach to radiology can improve patient care. Several topics will be introduced including systems-based thinking, just culture and a marginal gains approach

Session 1 & 2

In these sessions, we will look at real-life examples of how addressing human factors can have a massive their impact on patient care. We will look at examples within medicine and within radiology. We will then attempt to construct a number of possible projects, using a Human Factors approach, that delegates can undertake to improve patient care in their radiology department.

Sessions 3 & 4

Using material from the Terema Human Factors Course, we will concentrate on some aspects of team working and social interactions in the workplace.

• Situational Awareness: A critical but sometimes elusive foundation for decision making in a broad range of situations. This can be broken down into perception of the elements in your environment, comprehension of the situation and projection of future status. Put more simply, what is going on around you and what may be about to happen. The objective of this topic is to gain an understanding of this concept and how frail our understanding of situations can be. Also that error is normal and that we make errors all the time.

• Authority Gradient: This refers to the established or perceived decision making power hierarchy between individuals in teams or groups. The objective is to gain an understanding of how steep authority gradients jeopardise effective communication and make us less safe, but that in times of extremis it may be necessary to steepen a flat authority gradient.

• Risk Management: This topic covers some aspects of clinical governance, including root cause analysis, threat and error management and risk analysis. The aim is to understand how we work in healthcare in an environment fraught with risk, and how we can take steps to reduce risk and to minimise the risk of error.

• Overload: When the pressure to think and the pressure to act exceeds our capacity, we can become overloaded. When this happens we can become out of control and are no longer determining outcomes. The objective of this section is to understand the concept of overload, how to look out for signs of it in ourselves and others and how we can practically manage such situations.

• Choosing Behaviour: This topic explains how we actually choose particular types of behaviour in the workplace situation, and how conflict can arise. Touching on the subject of transitional analysis, it explains how conflict situations can arise as people become entrenched in different ego states. The objective is to gain an understanding of how these situations arise and how moving to adult modes of behaviour can help to resolve workplace based conflicts.