Exploring Human Factors 3: Designing systems to enhance medication safety

This session will explore how healthcare can use systems engineering approaches to design safer systems.

Systems, Medication, Safety

Two case studies from the acute care setting will demonstrate the opportunities that this approach brings, and what are the challenges involved. We will consider how to understand if the current system design supports safety and how we can influence design of equipment, environment, and organisational factors to support known risks like LASAs – Look-alike sound-alike medicines.

The session will demonstrate different approaches that you could take to improve the safety of systems and how by choosing the right approach for the situation, sustainable change can be achieved.

Learning outcomes:

• Recognise that systems engineering can create sustainable change
• Describe how a systems engineering approach could inform safety actions
• Apply different Human Factors tools and outline how they inform organisational decision making and priority setting

Chair:

• Dr Andrew Rochford MSc FRCP – Improvement Clinical Director, Royal College of Physicians Consultant Gastroenterologist Royal Free London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Speakers:

• Laura Pickup – Head of Human Factors at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston. Chartered Human Factors Practitioner and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors.
• Cate Leon – Medication Safety Pharmacist and Patient Safety Specialist.
• Angela Carrington – Lead Pharmacist for Medication Safety, Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland.