Human Factors Everywhere
Human-centered approaches for running a safe and secure business.
What We Do
Research
Applied research around human factors approaches for addressing novel situations, such as the use of artificial intelligence.
Training
Education and training on human factors approaches, e.g. Task Analysis and Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM).
Consultancy
Putting human factors into practice across industries and settings, including healthcare and aviation.
White Paper: Human Factors / Ergonomics in Healthcare AI
This White Paper illustrates how to move from a technology-centric focus of AI, which is concerned with the accuracy and performance of AI in isolation, towards a systems perspective that helps us to understand how we can use AI meaningfully and safely in healthcare processes and systems. Human Factors Everywhere coordinated the efforts of over 30 contributors as part of our engagement with the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors. The White Paper is free to download from the CIEHF web page.
Guidance: Achieving Sustainable Change - Capturing Lessons from Covid-19
Human Factors Everywhere took the lead in developing this guidance with colleagues at the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors. The guidance aims to help organisations learn from the positive changes made in the response to the coronavirus pandemic. The guidance is aimed primarily at the Health and Social Care sector, but the principles are applicable across industries. All of the CIEHF Covid-19 guidance documents are available freely at the dedicated Covid-19 web page.
Guidance: Vaccinating a Nation - 10 Human Factors and Ergonomics Principles
Countries around the world are faced with the challenge of implementing large-scale national vaccination programmes safely and quickly. We developed guidance in collaboration with colleagues at the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors to support the adoption of systems thinking in COVID-19 vaccination programmes. Freely available from the CIEHF Covid-19 web pages.
Book: Building Safer Healthcare Systems
This book lays the foundation for the national patient safety syllabus developed by Health Education England. The book explains the principles of the systems approach to patient safety. More information can be found on the Springer web pages.
News & Updates
Education: Short videos introducing the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM)
January 2023: In collaboration with our partners at the Assuring Autonomy International Programme (AAIP) at York University, we developed four short videos introducing FRAM and outlining how the method can be applied to the design of autonomous systems. You can access the videos here.
Building better care - 10 HF/E principles for the design of community diagnostic centres
September 2022: We collaborated with Health Education England in the development of HF/E design principles to inform the development of community diagnostic centres and the design of new diagnostic pathways in the community. Read more about this work in this article published in The Ergonomist.
Supporting HF/E skills at COMAH sites: CIEHF guidance on conducting Human Reliability Analysis
March 2022: We are contributing to the development of a new set of guidance notes on conducting Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) for COMAH sites. The guidance notes will be made available through CIEHF towards the end of 2022.
Education: New partnership with Being Human in Healthcare
February 2022: We are delighted about our new strategic partnership with Being Human in Healthcare. Being Human provides clinician-led human factors / ergonomics education and training.
Patient Safety: New paper on the role of HF/E in safe future healthcare published by RCP
November 2021: HFE led on a collaborative article with colleagues from CIEHF on the role of Human Factors / Ergonomics in the design of safe future healthcare. The article is published open access by the Royal College of Physicians journal (Future Healthcare Journal) in their special issue on patient safety.
White Paper: Human Factors / Ergonomics in Healthcare AI
September 2021: HFE coordinated the development of a new White Paper on the design and use of AI in healthcare. The White Paper is published by CIEHF in collaboration with national and international partners (BSI, Human Factors Everywhere, relaesa, Society for Health Care Innovation, Patient Safety Learning, Assuring Autonomy International Programme, Irish Human Factors & Ergonomics Society, and Australian Alliance for AI in Healthcare). An accompanying journal paper has been published open access in BMJ Health & Care Informatics.
Education: Healthcare Learning Pathway
July 2021: The CIEHF Healthcare Learning Pathway – Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) for patient safety is officially launched. Human Factors Everywhere is one of the founding partners of this exciting new resource for embedding HF/E skills in healthcare. Structured into three levels, the Learning Pathway can guide learners from novice to expert level with accreditation as technical specialist by CIEHF. The Learning Pathway is currently run by Loughborough University.
Research: AI command centre in the NHS
May 2021: HFE has joined the advisory group for a new research project that aims to understand and evaluate how an AI-supported hospital command centre can support health services delivery. The project is coordinated by researchers from the University of Leeds.
COVID-19: New guidance on systems thinking in national vaccination programmes
New Research Project: Safety assurance framework for machine learning in healthcare
2021-2022: We are collaborating with NHS Digital (project coordinator) and BSI to develop and test a new safety assurance framework for machine learning applications in healthcare.
COVID-19: New article on Achieving Sustainable Change guidance published in Int. Journal for Quality in Health Care
January 2021: Can we learn from COVID-19 to improve infection prevention and control practices? In this new article published open access in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care we collaborate with colleagues from Italy to explore how the CIEHF guidance on Achieving Sustainable Change can help learn lessons from the response to the pandemic. The article is part of a special issue on HF/E approaches to help with COVID-19.
COVID-19: New article on HF/E contributions published in Health Business
December 2020: In collaboration with CIEHF colleagues we reflect on the response of the Institute to the pandemic. Read more about the Gold team, the guidance documents that were produced, and the plans for embedding HF/E through a dedicated healthcare Learning Pathway in this article in Health Business: Ergonomics to support the COVID-19 response.
New Research Project: Assuring the safety of AI for the recognition of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
2020 – 2022: December has seen the kick-off for our new research project on “Assuring safe AI in critical ambulance service response”. We are collaborating with Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust, Danish AI developers Corti and the University of York in the development of a safety case for an AI tool that can support the timely recognition of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Research: Using AI to support the quality of life of patients undergoing cancer treatment
2020 – 2022: Human Factors Everywhere is excited to join the advisory board for the EU Horizon 2020 project FAITH. The project aims to develop AI applications that can identify and analyse depression markers in patients that have had cancer treatment. This can help to provide timely access to important mental health support. The project is coordinated by Waterford Institute of Technology.
New Research Project: Rescue for emergency surgery patients observed to undergo acute deterioration
2020 – 2025: Human Factors Everywhere takes up the role of human factors lead in this 5-year research project funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). The project coordinator is Prof Peter McCulloch at Oxford University.
Covid-19: New CIEHF guidance on capturing lessons from Covid-19
July 2020: The Chartered Institute for Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) approached Human Factors Everywhere to lead on a new guidance to support organisations capture lessons from their response to Covid-19 in order to achieve sustainable change. NHS Education for Sotland hosted a presentation on the Achieving Sustainable Change guidance as part of the Health Foundation Q Exchange programme (in February 2021). Listen in to find out more.
Covid-19: New paper on Digital Health & Care in Pandemic Times
June 2020: Covid-19 has accelerated the uptake of digital technology and AI – it is important that we capture and share the lessons. Full paper available open access from BMJ Health & Care Informatics: Peek, Sujan & Scott. Digital Health & Care in Pandemic Times: Impact of Covid-19.
Covid-19: New CIEHF guidance for the development of procedures
May 2020: Human Factors Everywhere contributed to this brilliant new CIEHF guidance for the design of procedures in health and social care. The work was led by Paul Bowie at NES.
Covid-19: CIEHF human factors guidance for the design and operation of ventilators
April 2020: The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) have made available guidance on human factors in the design and operation of ventilators for Covid-19. This is to support manufacturers in the rapid development of ventilators during the crisis. Many thanks to all of the colleagues who contributed. The Independent included a feature based on this work – read about the potential risks to patients.
Education: Supporting the adoption of the national patient safety syllabus
April 2020: We are working with UCLPartners and colleagues at CIEHF to develop a tool that allows organisations to assess their readiness for the adoption of the national patient safety syllabus.
New Research Project: Using FRAM to develop safety indicators
2020 – 2021: Human Factors Everywhere joins the “Human-Centred Safety Crowd-Sensitive Indicators in Enterprises project (H(CS)2I)“. We are collaborating with ENEA and La Sapienza University in Rome, and Middlesex University in the UK to investigate how FRAM can be applied to develop leading safety indicators in the manufacturing industry.
Education: Human Factors of AI
March 2020: We are teaching a session on “Human Factors of AI” at the Department of Computer Science at University of York to students on the MSc module “Computers & Safety”.
Education: Digital Health & AI at the CIEHF
2020 – 2021: We are leading the new special interest group on Digital Health & AI at the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF). Human Factors Everywhere will represent CIEHF at a roundtable discussion with NHSx, NHS Digital and NHS Improvement to argue the case that Human Factors can make a significant contribution to deliver the UK’s ambitious aim of accelerating the digitisation of health and care, and becoming world leaders in the adoption of AI.