From The Ergoweb® Learning Center

Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society invites you to attend the 2012 Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care, to be held March 12–14 at the Marriott Baltimore Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. Mark your calendars!

The objective of the symposium is to bring together professionals and other stakeholders in both the scientific and practice realms of the health-care community and to bridge knowledge gaps among them. HF/E professionals will present the latest research, best practices, and case histories.

Lucien L. Leape, MD, kicks off the syposium with the opening plenary address on Monday, March 14. Leape is Adjunct Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. A health policy analyst whose research has focused on patient safety and quality of care, Leape was one of the founders of the National Patient Safety Foundation.

Unique to this symposium is the inclusion of manufacturers, health-care providers (physicians, nurses, administrators, etc.), and policy makers, who will discuss their experiences in using HF/E processes and principles. The symposium will also enable them to communicate their need for additional collaboration with the HF/E community.

The symposium will address a variety of topics and perspectives in health-care human factors/ergonomics, organized along three main tracks:

  • Information Technology
  • Macroergonomics and Patient Care
  • Medical Device Design

Specific topics may include emergency room management, patient handling, public health, home health care, electronic health records, health-care information systems, medical information technology, design of medicine/drug delivery devices, usability testing, and regulatory requirements.

This symposium is ideal for a broad range of audiences, including

  • HF/E scientists, academics, and practitioners
  • health-care regulators and policy makers
  • medical device manufacturers, including product managers, engineers, and designers
  • drug-delivery device manufacturers
  • physicians
  • nurses and other health care providers
  • hospital/emergency room administrators
  • industrial designers
  • biomedical engineers
  • medical device regulatory consultants
  • students from a variety of disciplines, including human factors/ergonomics, industrial engineering, biomedical engineering, industrial design, and psychology
  • usability and UX engineers working in the medical field

What attendees will gain from the symposium:

  • Access to the latest science, regulatory requirements, best practices, and industry needs related to health-care human factors/ergonomics
  • Unparalleled ability to cross-network with attendees from the health-care industry, academia, consulting, and regulatory agencies
  • More useful information from longer presentations and a smaller number of tracks and sessions

For more details, visit

http://www.hfes.org/Web/HFESMeetings/HealthCareSymposium.html