Background on Human Factors in Healthcare

In healthcare, human factors are components that interact to improve medical performance. Human factors are mainly concerned with the relationship between human performance and the design of their work. Its primary purpose in healthcare is to promote quality work, safe care for patients, promoting and supporting the physical and mental wellbeing of all healthcare professionals.Patients receive treatment by dedicated healthcare professionals everyday. Mostly,the outcomes of treatment is usually positive. However, there are cases in which results of treatment are negative with patients getting harmed or even dying. This may be due to mistakes made by healthcare professionals or a flaw in the system for examplefaulty machines. Factors such as individual characteristics,management,evternal environment and nature of work affects quality of healthcare delivery. Organizational element,fatigue and teamwork have been discussed in this paper. Their effect on work performance and quality and safe healthcare delivery have also been explored. The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of human factors on work performance and how they relate to quality and safety in healthcare provision. It focuses on the relationship between healthcare professionals and how this relationship can impact the service delivery and patient outcomes. It’s also focused on human factors related to patient safety rather than the safety of health care workers.

Human factors in healthcare can be dated back to 1980s and 1990s.its however in 1995 that human factors practices were increasingly incorporated into healthcare by James Reason. He introduced active and latent failures concept suggesting that active failures are those committed by personnel in the system while latent failures are those that are due to organizational level design. Employees’ performance and productivity is affected by the workplace environment. In healthcare, workers are exposed to occupational hazards such ergonomic disorders and suffocation among other things (Hignett et al., 2015).

The interaction between health workers, work and the workplace environment are very important. Healthcare management should therefore focus on providing a safe work environment for health workers to ensure maximum efficiency and good performance. There are several factors that impact work performance in health care. Factors that results in adverse outcomes in healthcare are known as tiers. They include external environment, nature of work, management, individual characteristics, human system interface and organizational or social environment (Henricksen et al., 2008). In this paper, however, only three are going to be discussed that is organizational management, teamwork, and fatigue.

The organizational element is focused on human factors that needs an executive leadership like safety culture development and wide knowledge building on organization. It’s important that senior managers, executives and non-executive leaders to understand what a safety culture constitutes for the staff (Gluyas & Hookham, 2016). A high level leadership is required to develop a positive and safe culture and to also integrate the training of human factors in healthcare. Developing a positive and safe culture in healthcare systems means that there exists an open, just and reporting culture. Active errors are as a result of the actions of healthcare providers responding to needs of patients at the sharp ends. Latent conditions, mainly organizational and design related. They are known as the blunt ends. They are those factors that are dormant in the system (Henricksen et al., 2008)

Factors that Impact Work Performance in Healthcare

Fatigue is another human factor that affects work performance in the healthcare sector.it is a state of extreme exhaustion because of heavy physical work, extensive mental work, lack of enough sleep, working for long hours and an elongated session of anxiety and stress (Owens, 2007). Fatigue has repercussions in workers’ productivity and safety. Workplace accidents have been the cause of accidents in most industries (Anne & Deborah, 2016). Fatigue is especially dominant in the healthcare sector as at times workers are required to work late. This risks the safety of the patients they are treating. Doctors and nurses who are sleep deprived are more inclined to make errors while on routine. Studies indicate that surgeons who performed critical surgeries believed that their fatigue could not affect their performance during operation (Owens, 2007).

Workers in the health care system should work in shifts to reduce the cases of accidents caused by fatigue. Fatigue indicators such as yawning and social interaction decrease should be taken seriously. Medical field requires individuals that can assess and plan for situations that rapidly change, risk evaluation, action consequence appreciation and keeping up with changing information (Holden et al., 2013). All these activities engage the brain and are a probable cause of sleep deprivation. Lack of sleep results in irritability, inadequate healthcare teams’ coordination and impaired communication.it also heightens irritability and causes a change in one’s mood (Holden et al., 2013). Research has shown that reduced working hours and improved sleep has greatly improved the work performance of health providers (Russ et al., 2013). Despite the fact that long working hours cause of fatigue, it’s also been suggested that it is necessary especially for residents as it exposes them to a variety of cases.

The third human factor that affects work performance is teamwork. It is two or more people working together for a common goal (Dekker, 2011). It only works if there is an open and honest discussion and problem-solving skills. Therefore, communication is vital for the success of any team project.in healthcare, teamwork is mainly centered on good communication that is useful in the jobs of community health workers and physicians (Design for Health, n.d.). Healthcare caregivers need to continually communicate to discuss the results of their patients, share information and consult ways to improve service delivery. It’s especially important for health workers to work as a team in a health system that is decentralized as there are many levels of health workers. Health care has multiple disciplinary. They include doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab physicians and professionals who have different duties. Each disciplinary has specialized knowledge and must team up to resolve health issues (Carayon, Xie & Kianfar, 2014).

Health workers can also team up to enlighten communities on healthy life choices and reduce medical errors.it has also decreased issues related to burnout. The team should be included in the medical curricula to inculcate a sense of working together right from school. This way, the students will be better prepared for when they have been professionally engaged. Good teamwork improves the morale of team members as well as their ability to function over time productively. It’s also essential for managers and supervisors to perceive the development of teamwork for increased patient safety. Healthcare practitioners should also be subjected to training and opportunities that will improve their team skills. There is, therefore, no doubt that human factors significantly affect the work performance of health professionals (Wilson, 2014)

Organizational Element

Quality in healthcare mainly depends on the hospital management. Effective and safe healthcare should be made available to everyone and when they need it. Shortcomings and mistakes in the healthcare system by workers is responsible for the mental and physical damage of patients. Patients should be able to trust that they are receiving quality and safe care. Healthcare leadership has a strong correlation with patient outcomes and service delivery.it could either impact productivity and patient safety positively or negatively. Generally, leadership is the decision to follow an individual who coordinates and controls a team for the achievement of a common goal (Hignett et al., 2015). Quality of care is the degree to which the desired health outcomes increases with an improvement in the health service provision while being in line with skills and procedures within the health system. Quality care can be described in relation to equitability, safety, reliability, effectiveness, efficiency and patient centeredness. Leadership is therefore a key element in achieving quality healthcare (Leadership for Healthcare, 2010).

Empowering leadership promotes the stability of the staff while decreasing turn out. Productive leadership lessens mortality rates, as it influences, keeps and maintain an experienced workforce. Leaders should be able to offer guidance that results in the success of their organizations about quality in service delivery, safe patient care and compliance with regulations. They should also be subjected to training on skills development that will develop their effectiveness. They could apply for programs on evidence-based leadership. This would increase the ability of the healthcare system to attain and sustain outcomes of quality.

Teamwork can either affect health care quality positively or negatively. A well-coordinated team is more productive as compared to a poorly structured team (Owens, 2007).  Teamwork ensures the delivery of extraordinary healthcare. Studies have shown that when a medical team is efficient and effective, they enjoy working, insecurity and safety concerns are decreased and rates of workers retention increases (Dekker, 2016). The care for patients also gets better with team collaboration. Teamwork improves patient responsiveness. Doctors, nurses and assistants that works as a team makes lesser mistakes resulting in better patient outcomes. This is because of the trust present in a united team that increases confidence in teammates trusting that they will deliver in a crisis. team members’ work towards a set goal with each member having a specific role to play (Dekker, 2016). When these roles are direct, there is no or little doubt on treatment plans for the patients. This clarity among team members translates into patients trust on the expected outcome.

Adequately organized teams make better use of resources and are more efficient. Mirroring the success that is present in other industries, the health sector could save money and become competitive by adopting the teamwork techniques in these industries. For effective service delivery, each team member needs to understand the role of the others (Armstrong, Headrick, Madigosky & Ogrinc, 2012). This will prevent an overlap in duties. It will also improve the skills of team members. Working as a team also helps one understand the responsibilities of administrators, physical therapists, nursing assistants, nurses, social workers, and physicians. To ensure safe and quality healthcare delivery, there must exist dependable teamwork and an alliance within technical, cultural, organizational and disciplinary fields (Hall, Johnson, Watt, Tsipa & O’Connor, 2016).

Fatigue

Fatigue negatively affects the quality of health care. It’s commonly present in health care sector that operate for 24-hours.it has been recognized as a safety issue in the healthcare industry. It lowers the performance ability of the individual resulting in poor service delivery. This is majorly due to sleep disruption and deprivation. Their work requires that they work for 12 hours and even more if necessary. This may result in extreme fatigue while working as it goes against rest needs of the body (Mosadeghrad, 2014). Workers that are fatigued lack the ability to stay alert and focused. This leads to medication and procedural errors. Errors could cause extreme patient injury or even death. Fatigue causes lapses in one’s memory, irritability, confusion, reaction time that is diminished, slow processing and judgment of information among other things (Sorenson et al., 2016)

Apart from the consequences that fatigue poses on patients, they also affect the health workers. They experience mood disorders, disturbance in their sleep and possible injury. Healthcare workers are however expected to be vigilant and alert despite fatigue to ensure the provision of health services (Fiabane, Giorgi, Sguazzin & Argentero, 2013).

Conclusion:

As the value of humans become more evident in the health sector, an interest in human factors is also increasing. Human factor explores the relationship between engineering and psychology. It’s concerned with how the design of work systems impact performance. There are medical errors in the field of healthcare; This contrasts their devotion to heal and promote human health. These errors could be as a result of faulty medical equipment.  But more often than not, they are the faults of health professionals. Stress, fatigue, work environment, leadership, and teamwork are among human factors that affect the work performance of health workers. Knowledge of human factors could be used to improve health care services as it helps in better team communication and upholds prescribing practices that are safe. It’s therefore paramount that nurses, doctors, lab technicians, administrators, and any other health professional perceive the connection between human factors and work performance. This perception will enable a productive and safer work environment. Even though human factors is not a promise of immediate solutions, it can be resourceful in offering scientific search and development.it gives solutions for health care quality and the safety of patients. Health care providers and human factors agencies should work together to identify issues present and come up with solutions.

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