The aim of the report
Patient safety is considered as the global challenge that needs knowledge and capabilities in a number of areas such as human factors and systems engineering (Spence Laschinger, Leiter, Day &Gilin, 2009). Human factors are those that refer to organizational, environmental and various characteristics of human and individual, which persuade behavior at job in an approach which can influence health and safety. The human factors have a significant role in work performance. It is required for the business to ensure health and safety in order to get high productivity and quality. The combination of good technology is required for the best work systems which would be helpful in attaining the goals. The best work systems are based on having a talented workforce with effectively designed jobs that are systematic to the abilities of the individual.
- To explore the human factors that impact on work performance.
- To identify the bonding between these and quality and safety in health care provisions.
- To analyze the concept as well as key issues connected to the human factors and performance of place of work.
“Human factors systems approach to healthcare quality and patient safety”.
This report will include the critical study and discussion of all main concepts and major issues regarding human factors and workplace performance. Further, their relationship to quality and safety in healthcare will be elaborated in-depth manner. At last, the conclusion will be drawn in order to get summarized about all contents of this report.
Figure: concepts of human factors that influence the work performance
Source: (Flin, Winter &CakilSarac, 2009).
This concept entails many concepts such as safety culture, manager’s leadership, and communication. The safety culture concept can be considered as the safety climate that attained the focus of after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986. The concept of safety in healthcare organization weep huge importance and it reflects the worker attitudes regarding the management of risk and safety. It has been analyzed that the dimensions of organizational safety culture are distinguished into the relativeprioritization of safety, reporting of errors, risk management, adherence to safety rules and work practices regarding the safety. It is required for effective safety management to have the leadership which plays a significant role at every level of management at the strategic level. There is another factor in the organizational concept that is communication. It is a noteworthy tool to increase the work efficiency for delivering the high quality and safe work (Flin, Winter & CakilSarac, 2009).
A human factors analysis is elaborate that most errors could be featured in poor communication between nurses and physicians. It has been found that there are many factors that influence the work performance of the healthand care system such as lack of safety culture, improper communication and lack of training. These key issues can become the major reason for patient death
Figure: The frequency of different communication issues
Source: (Thomas & MacDonald, 2016).
The above mentioned image shows that the lack of communication can become the major reason for improper services of health and safety culture. Along with that, there are various categories of communication failures such as organization system failures, transmission failures and reception failure. These concepts are being the major reason for human factors that affect the work Performance of the employee (Mike, 2010).
Major concepts and key issues
It has been found that the teams are expanding characteristics of organizational life, as the role of the job frequently includes group with various expertises who have to assist on similar works. Every kind of job in healthcare is followed by interdisciplinary groups of workers such as the operating room team, clinics and other treatment units and shifts of staff from wards. It has been found that the group behaviours can impact the individual behavior (Carayon, et. al., 2014). The aspects that affect team performance including psychological and size composition of the group. There is another part of the workgroup concepts that is the team dynamics which consider to the psychological processes elaborating the communications that happen in the group evidenced through behaviours linked with statement, argument management, decision making, and cooperation.
A development of the human faults and organizational accidents loom is defined by the effort done by the World Alliance for Patient Safety in order to improve an international categorization and a theoretical framework for the purpose of the patient safety. It has been found that the international classifications for patient safety of the World Health organziation’s world alliances for patient safety have become the major effort at regulating the terminology which is taken into consideration for the patient safety (Guest, 2011). There are many incidents which can be done by a human. These incidents can be categorized into medication and blood products and healthcare infection. It is required for the management of the health care organizations to focus on those factors which can impact the workplace performance.
The workingenvironment is the major concept of the human factors as it is the environment that focuses on the tools for the assessment of hazards and risks. It has been analyzed that the equipment design is considered as the vital component of concern for patient safety, for instance, the ready ability of packaging of medicine and labeling and usability of the infusion pumps. There are many factors that are related to the equipment design which is the key element of human factors and these are further than the area of knowledge. It is required for the healthcare organization to keep the focus on all those factors that influence the performance of the employee. Apart from that, it has been analyzed that the risk modeling and exposure analysis are taken in use expansively in a range of industrial settings, majorly those handling with a high level of risks such as energy production and transportation (Cummings,et. al., 2010).
There are various issues such as the lack of advanced opportunities, work overload, poor organizational culture, and inadequate staff, insufficiency of mentoring and lack of training. The above mentioned issues impact the work performance of the employee. According toBecker, (2011),that 51% of healthcare workers are come under the lack of advancement opportunities issue in their current or previous position. This number is lower among nurses in which 49% of nurses recognized advancement opportunities in the form of the challenge. Along with that it has been found that 40% of healthcare workers are faced challenges to deliver work at their jobs.
Organizational concept
It has been found that there are many factors related to the psychological that impact the worker’s behaviour that contributes to the outcomes of the safety. The human factors that are most often tended to at this stage are the non-specialized aptitudes – these are the ‘subjective, social and individual asset abilities that supplement specialized aptitudes, and add to sheltered and productive execution. Situation awareness is basically what analysts call observation or consideration. The role of the SA is to observe the things that impact the work performed at the healthcare organization with the end goal to comprehend what is happening and what may occur in the following minutes or hours. There is an example of driving the car which required high level of situation awareness. There is another aspect of the individual concept that is decision making which is considered as the critical component of workplace safety in the terms of the reducing errors. There are main accidents in elevated risk armed and aviation led researchers to improve the approaches to study about vivid decision making (Simpson, 2009).
It has been found that there are many examples of bad decision making that lead people to accidents. An investigation of aircraft accidents in the USA somewhere in the range of 1983 and 1987 is uncovered that poor team judgment and basic leadership were causal causes in 47% of cases. The work performance of health care organization can be affected due to less of decision-making approach which is considered as the skills for safe task performance. Decision making is the approach which can be influenced by stress and fatigue, particularly the option and creative ways which need more active thinking.
Figure: Human Factors Model of Interactions
Source: (Thomas & MacDonald, 2016).
Relationship of organizational concept with quality and safety in healthcare
Safety culture turned into a critical issue for human services associations endeavoring to enhance persistent security and there are some security examinations have designated that companies need to amendment their culture to make it concentration towards to do right things.The Institute of Medicine expressed, “The healthcare organization ought to build up a culture of security with the end goal that an association’s outline procedures and workforce are focussed on an unmistakable objective.
Relationship of workgroup with quality and safety in healthcare
It is required for the healthcare to have an effective team leader or supervisor for the purpose of maintaining the safety for the units the company needs to manage. Along with that it has been found that the models of effective leadership behaviour elaborated earlier which are needed to be applicable (Rocha, 2010). It is necessary for the supervisors of the healthcare to monitor and support the safe behaviour of the workers that highlight the safety over productivity and encourage employee involvement in safety initiatives (McFadden, Henagan&Gowen III, 2009).
Relationship of the working environment with quality and safety in healthcare
For the purpose to more secure for patients, healthcare organizations must recognize dangers and risks inserted in their procedures and frameworks and must gain from wellbeing occasions. It has been analyzed in the context of making the relationship of the working environment with health and safety in healthcare that healthcare delivery encompasses of a mind-boggling understanding of connections between the patient and the healthcare worker, yet in addition between the patient and equipment. Those communications can be efficiently analyzed utilizing investigation techniques. This should be possible in various courses: at the single occasion level e.g. root cause analysis (RCA), at the system level, e.g. probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). These techniques can understand the risks that are a risk to persistent wellbeing (Halbesleben, Wakefield, Wakefield & Cooper, 2008).
Relationship of an individual with quality and safety in healthcare
The effect of the nature of the individual has a significant impact over the performance and there is number of factors such as stress, fatigue decision making approach and many more. Decision making approach can be considered as the effective tool for the healthcare professionals and the issues of decisions can happen in every type of patients care environments. Work issues, decreased efficiency, expression of uneasiness or deprived squad presentation can outcome when breakdowns to manage with stressor happen. Thus, managing stress is considered as the major aspect with respect to patient safety.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that the role of the human factors in making a good performance of the healthcare organizations is huge. Developing patient safety includes key system redesign of healthcare work systems and ways. The conceptual framework has been outlined in order to define the concepts of human factors. The concepts of the human factors or their key issues have been elaborated under this report.
References
Becker, 2011. The Top challenges facing healthcare workers. Retrieved from: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/the-top-10-challenges-facing-healthcare-workers.html.
Carayon, P., Wetterneck, T. B., Rivera-Rodriguez, A. J., Hundt, A. S., Hoonakker, P., Holden, R., &Gurses, A. P. (2014). Human factors systems approach to healthcare quality and patient safety. Applied ergonomics, 45(1), 14-25.
Cummings, G. G., MacGregor, T., Davey, M., Lee, H., Wong, C. A., Lo, E., …& Stafford, E. (2010). Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the nursing workforce and work environment: a systematic review. International journal of nursing studies, 47(3), 363-385.
Flin, R., Winter, J., &CakilSarac, M. R. (2009). Human factors in patient safety: review of topics and tools. World Health, 2.
Guest, D. E. (2011). Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers. Human resource management journal, 21(1), 3-13.
Halbesleben, J. R., Wakefield, B. J., Wakefield, D. S., & Cooper, L. B. (2008). Nurse burnout and patient safety outcomes: nurse safety perception versus reporting behavior. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 30(5), 560-577.
McFadden, K. L., Henagan, S. C., &Gowen III, C. R. (2009). The patient safety chain: Transformational leadership’s effect on patient safety culture, initiatives, and outcomes. Journal of Operations Management, 27(5), 390-404.
Mike, A. (2010) Visual workplace: How you see performance in the planet and in the office. International Journal of Financial Trade 11: 250-260.
Rocha, R. S. (2010). Institutional effects on occupational health and safety management systems. Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries, 20(3), 211-225.
Simpson, M. R. (2009). Engagement at work: A review of the literature. International journal of nursing studies, 46(7), 1012-1024.
Spence Laschinger, H. K., Leiter, M., Day, A., &Gilin, D. (2009). Workplace empowerment, incivility, and burnout: Impact on staff nurse recruitment and retention outcomes. Journal of nursing management, 17(3), 302-311.
Thomas, A. N., & MacDonald, J. J. (2016). Patient safety incidents associated with failures in communication reported from critical care units in the North West of England between 2009 and 2014. Journal of the Intensive Care Society, 17(2), 129-135