Program Tracks
New for 2021, the Virtual HFES International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care will be offering FIVE educational tracks that each focus on different aspects of health care systems and how HF/E intersects with them. Submissions of all types — lectures, posters, discussion panels, workshops — are encouraged for each track. Learn more about each track below.
NEW — Education and Simulation
The education and simulation track focuses on the intersection between HF/E and modern simulation capabilities within the healthcare context. This includes human-systems integration of simulation into modern medical education, use of simulation for skills training, testing of new technologies, or even for in-hospital or at-home health systems design. Also addressed in this track are AR/VR technologies, and new techniques/approaches to patient safety and care education.
Patient Safety Research and Initiatives
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.
Digital Health
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
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
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.