Program Tracks

The virtual International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care will be offering four educational tracks -- each focusing on distinct aspects of health care systems and how HF/E intersects with them. Learn more about each track below.

Digital Health

Track Chairs:

Janey Barnes, User-View, Inc.

Korey Johnson, Bold Insight

The Digital Health Track focuses on a range of health IT areas that affect clinicians, patients, caregivers and the general public. Areas include electronic and personal health records and health management portals, clinical decision support, consumer health mobile applications, telehealth, digital telemetry products, "in-the-home" technologies and various other digital health software applications and interfaces.

Hospital Environments

Track Chairs:

Brittany L. Anderson-Montoya, Atrium Health

Kylie Gomes, MedStar Health

The Hospital Environments Track focuses on the professional and technical issues of applying HF/E principles to design processes, devices, and systems supporting the work of health care personnel and impacting the care and safety of patients. 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 principles at the clinical front line. Topics include, but are not limited to:

Physical considerations, such as environmental design and layout, equipment design, information displays, alarms and safe patient handling equipment.
Cognitive considerations, including learning, memory, judgment, decision making, and cognitive workload.
Emotional/motivational factors, such as burnout and stress.
Sociocultural factors such as teamwork, communication, production pressures, and the interaction between health care providers and their environment.

Medical and Drug Delivery Devices

Track Chairs:

Natalie Abts, Genentech

Shannon Hoste, Agilis Consulting

The Medical and Drug-Delivery Devices Track focuses on the application of human factors and user experience methods and principles to the design, evaluation and validation of medical devices and combination products, covering all classes of products to include over-the-counter (OTC). This includes software as a medical device (SaMD). Also addressed in this track are regulatory issues and best practices.

Patient Safety Research and Initiatives

Track Chairs:

Enid Montague, DePaul University

Kate MacNamee, Ximedica

The Patient Safety Research and Initiatives Track focuses on the multidisciplinary collaboration between patients and healthcare providers to improve the quality and safety of health care. Relevant topics include safety culture, quality improvement, care transitions, Covid-19 response, teamwork and team performance, and patient-as-leader initiatives.