Human factors methods for designing safe health information technology: what do the experts think?

Human Factors (HF) methods have potential to ensure the design of health information technology (HIT) is safe and usable, but limited research has examined what HF methods have been applied or could be applied to HIT. This study aimed to identify key HF and safety analysis methods used and/or recommended by HF experts working in healthcare or non-healthcare industries that may be suitable for supporting the design, redesign and configuration of HIT.

We ran semi-structured interviews with 21 HF experts working across health and non-health industries to identify key HF and safety analysis methods used and/or recommended for supporting the design, redesign and configuration of HITs.

Forty-seven HF methods across 11 method categories were reported by HF experts. Non-health participants reported a wider range of Human Error Identification and Risk Assessment Methods and were the only cohort to report workload assessment methods. Both health and non-health participants described their approaches for selecting methods and recommended that methods be applied flexibly.

This study highlights the need to uplift HF capability by teaching methods to system designers, particularly where access to HF experts is limited and undertaking efforts to learn from HF practice in safety-critical industries outside of healthcare.

Further work is required to integrate HF methods and approaches, especially those focused on safety, into the work of HIT designers.