Human Factors & Patient Safety

Question 1

What are non-technical skills?

Answer 1

• general cognitive and social skills that facilitate monitoring situations, decision making, leadership, communication and coordination of team actions in order to achieve high levels of safety and efficiency

Question 2

What does the GDC state about teams?

Answer 2

• a good team will have:
  
  • good leadership
  • different roles and responsibilities
  • understanding of roles and responsibilities
  • clear shared aims
    - working together to achieve them

Question 3

What does the GDC state about speaking up?

Answer 3

• responsibility to raise any concern you have
  
  • patient may be at risk
  • health, behaviour or professional performance
    - conflicting with protecting patient

Question 4

What are the operational, organisational and human factors involved in healthcare, inspired by aviation?

Answer 4

• operational
  
  • non-technical skills
  • incident reporting
• organisational
  
  • systems factors
  • standardisation
• human
  
  • perception, cognition, affect, psychomotor
  • impact of context

Question 5

Provide examples of non-technical skills

Answer 5

• task management
  
  • planning
  • prioritising
  • standards
  • resources
• team working
  
  • coordinating individuals
  • information exchange
  • authority
  • assessing capabilities
  • support
• situational awareness
  
  • monitoring
  • recognising
  • anticipating
• decision making
  
  • identifying options
  • balancing risks
  • reevaluating

Question 6

What is the SBAR briefing model?

Answer 6

• standardised mode of communication
  
  • channels are open and clear
  • situation can be addressed
• Situation
  
  • what is the situation?
• Background
  
  • how did we get to this point?
• Assessment
  
  • what do we know/think
• Recommendation
  
  • what are we going to do?

Question 7

What are common sources of risk?

Answer 7

• workload fluctuations
• interruptions
• fatigue
• multitasking
• failure to follow up
• not following protocol
• poor handover care between staff
• ineffective communication
• unfamiliarity with task
• inexperience
• shortage of time
• inadequate checking
• poor procedures
• poor human/equipment interface

Question 8

Provide examples of human factors?

Answer 8

• affect
  
  • feeling affect performance
  • illness/emotion/etc.
• perception
  
  • not reliable
• cognition
  
  • biased
• memory
  
  • not reliable
• motor activity
  
  • biased
• involuntary automaticity
  
  • cannot remember what was just carried out
• overload
  
  • too much stress

Question 9

How can human factors be managed?

Answer 9

• avoid reliance on memory
• review and simplify processes
• standardise common processes and procedures
• routinely used checklists
• decrease reliance on being extra careful