Most of the nurses may surely have heard the term ‘human factors’ in their study period or while practice. However, another fact is that they do not really understand which kind of detrimental effects it can put in their practical work as well as to their patients.
As a whole, healthcare professionals operate within settings that include many physical systems such as- colleagues or team members, equipment, science and the technology itself. It’s amazing how healthcare settings are under the constant revolution of changes and advancement. However, along with this revolution there is always a precaution to be taken. For instance, the presence of such many physical settings leads to many adverse consequences of setups that affect the patient as well.
As far as the interaction of humans with all these settings is concerned and how this interaction affects the safety of the patients is concerned, this study is segregated as a unique discipline known as the ‘study of human factors’. Nurses shall be acquainted with the details of human factors that may affect the procedure of their healthcare towards the patient.
It’s been very rare that a patient might get affected by the settings around him/her just because of one person. Nevertheless, in case a patient has undergone an inadvertent, an unintentional harm, the blame is eventually put on a single person. However, the study of human factors in nursing implies that humans shall not be held responsible for the errors occurring due to usage of technology. After all, if the user of a machine commits a mistake, this is primarily because of some faulty design law of the machine itself.
For example, a nurse is taking care of a cancer patient who requires radiation therapy. The patient’s treatment procedure is fed to the machine delivering the radiation. However, when the error message is displayed on the screen of the machine that ends up being not at all informative. In such case, the physicist who fed the procedure in the machine would think that everything is perfectly fine with the treatment. However, in fact, the machine is fed only with half of the procedure. Now, the cancer patient can be severely burnt. Is it the fault of the physicist?
Well, from the point of view of human factors, human is a creature that is fallible. No matter how highly qualified or trained you are, mistake happens and to err is human. Maybe, we work in settings that make us prone to commit mistakes, which are unintentional in the first place, but the matter that bothers us is that nurses shall be equipped with the skills of minimum possible errors occurring due to the colleagues, team members, tools, interfaces, devices and technology. After all, all of these are part of their job.
These days, there are courses such as 'Human Factors in Nurses', which aim to make nurses practice in a simulation based workshop which introduces the varying interactions between all the physical settings to them. It’s an initiative to trigger the psychological quotient of the nurses and make them intuitive and easy at technology, machines and procedures. To know more in details about the courses, please visit http://www.inscol.com/india/cce.
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