Frontiers in human factors: integrating human factors and ergonomics to improve safety and quality in Latin American healthcare systems
journal contribution
posted on 2021-03-24, 11:33 authored by Carlos Aceves-González, Yordán Rodríguez, Carlos Manuel Escobar-Galindo, Elizabeth Pérez, Beatriz Gutiérrez-Moreno, Sue HignettSue Hignett, Alexandra Rosewall LangBackground: The importance of human factors/ergonomics (HFE) is well established in all high-reliability systems but only applied in the healthcare sector relatively recently. Across many sectors, low-/middle-income countries (LMICs) lag behind more economically developed countries in their application of this safety science, due to resource and, in some cases, awareness and expertise. Most previous applications of HFE related to occupational ergonomics rather than healthcare safety.
Methods: The paper details how the reputation of HFE is being developed within healthcare communities of Latin America (LatAm), through increasing awareness and understanding of its role as safety science in the healthcare sector. It starts by articulating the need for HFE and then provides examples from Mexico, Colombia and Peru.
Results: The practical examples for research and education illustrate a developing awareness of the relevance of HFE to the healthcare sectors in LatAm and an appreciation of its worth to improve health service quality and patient safety through healthcare community engagement. A new LatAm Network of HFE in Healthcare Systems (RELAESA) was formed in 2019, which has provided a platform for HFE advice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conclusion: There is a real opportunity in LatAm and other LMIC health services to make more rapid and sustainable progress in healthcare-embedded HFE than has been experienced within healthcare services of more developed nations.
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- Design and Creative Arts
Department
- Design
Published in
International Journal for Quality in Health CareVolume
33Issue
Supplement_1Pages
45 - 50Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)Version
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© The AuthorsPublisher statement
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Oxford University Press under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC 4.0). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Acceptance date
2020-10-10Publication date
2020-11-28Copyright date
2020ISSN
1353-4505eISSN
1464-3677Publisher version
Language
- en
Depositor
Prof Sue Hignett. Deposit date: 18 March 2021Usage metrics
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