Macroergonomics in Health Care: Improving Work Design to Improve Employee and Patient Safety

Abstract

Improving the safety and health of health care employees and their patients has become a high profile national priority. To address this priority, the Institute of Medicine, in their report “To Err is Human”, called upon human factors engineering researchers and practitioners to contribute to the solutions. Macroergonomics is a specialty within human factors and ergonomics concerned with the design of work systems to meet the needs of the employees, business, and customers — making macroergonomic methods and theories well suited for helping to improve the safety of heath care for employees and their patients. This symposium will showcase how macroergonomics can be used to improve work design within health care for the simultaneous benefit of the employees and patients.

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