Review: Overcoming COVID-19: What can human factors and ergonomics offer?

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Review: Overcoming COVID-19: What can human factors and ergonomics offer?

This commentary highlights the usefulness of using Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) has been shown to effectively design, adapt, and reconfigure health care work systems to support individual and team performance in previous high-risk, high-stake situations (e.g., Ebola outbreak). A case example from a pediatric ambulatory care team demonstrates its effectiveness in the COVID-19 pandemic. Cognitive task analysis is particularly useful because health care work is cognitively intense and patient and health care worker safety relies heavily on how well information is disseminated. Failure in team cognition (e.g., miscommunication, lack of communication) is a major contributor to almost all inadequate emergency/disaster responses. Focusing on evidence-based human cognition and behavior approaches are essential to pandemic management, whereas simply communicating with health care providers about diligence or sending mixed messages is ineffective and hazardous.

|2020-04-21T09:02:15-04:00April 21st, 2020|COVID-19 Literature|Comments Off on Review: Overcoming COVID-19: What can human factors and ergonomics offer?

About the Author: Maria Brann

Maria Brann
Dr. Maria Brann, PhD, MPH, is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI and affiliate faculty with the Injury Control Research Center at West Virginia University. She explores the integration of health, interpersonal, and gender communication. Her translational focus and mixed methods approach are woven throughout her health vulnerabilities research, which advocates for more effective communication to improve people’s health and safety. Her primary research interests focus on the study of women’s and ethical issues in health communication contexts and promotion of healthy lifestyle behaviors to improve personal and public health and safety. She researches communication at both the micro and macro levels and studies how communication influences relationships among individuals and with the social world.

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