Human Factors on Quality of Care and Safety

Running head: HUMAN FACTORS ON QUALITY OF CARE AND SAFETY 1
Human Factors on Quality of Care and Safety
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HUMAN FACTORS ON QUALITY OF CARE AND SAFETY 2
Human Factors on Quality of Care and Safety
Health care practitioners are one of the highly trained, conscientious, and self-driven
experts. So, how comes that the quality of care is below the expected quality? Despite the high
levels of education and the will to deliver the best possible care, health care experts can be
victims of human factors. These factors include poorly designed medical facilities,
uncoordinated care processes, fatigue and stress, and fragmented medical systems. Many times,
the systems are designed in ways that fail to account for how individuals interact with their work
environments. On that note, the appraisal undertakes a review of human factors impact on
performance and quality of care. It also explores various studies, and offer interventions.
Uncoordinated care processes in the healthcare system tend to negatively impact
performance and, therefore, the quality and safety of care. Care coordination is based on the idea
that all healthcare experts handling a patient ought to be communicating and relay information.
This will ensure that everything is to meet the complex needs of patients (Roberts, Fisher,
Trowbridge, & Bent, 2016). The idea of coordinated care entails reporting all health outcomes to
a primary care expert or the professional responsible for a given patient. The move would be
vital in ensuring that the laboratories, hospitals, specialists, and the wards are working together
for ease of information dissemination. Unfortunately, coordinated care is reasonably far from full
realization leading to poor health outcomes.
It is essential for healthcare practitioners to be mindful of factors that increase the
probability of errors for human beings in healthcare situations. A significant number of
individual factors are likely to negatively impact on performance, therefore, predisposing an
individual to error. Examples of notable factors are both fatigue and stress. Precisely, there is

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solid scientific evidence that ties fatigue to a decline in human performance thereby making it
one of the known factors in patient safety. The link between the levels of stress to performance
has also been backed by research. High levels of stress are relatable to every individual, it is
crucial to also recognize that considerably low-stress levels result in low productivity
(Verstappen, Gaal, & Wensing, 2016). The low levels of stress can result in failure to handle
responsibilities with the appropriate vigilance.
In line with the factor on poorly designed facilities, much attention has been directed at
the technology and equipment, including the architectural design of some of hospital facilities
and the effect they have on the safety of patients (Barach & Rostenberg, 2015). In a bid to
address the challenges of errors in healthcare delivery and safety concerns, there is need to make
key changes in healthcare-related processes and culture. Changes are needed on the physical
healthcare environment so that it aligns with the practitioners and the healthcare resources to
enable safe care. The technology and equipment including the design of the hospital have for
ages failed to consider the effect on the safety of patients and quality of care. Yet large amounts
of money are continually invested in health care facilities (Carayon et al., 2015). The
investments offer the opportunity to utilize emerging and current evidence to better the physical
healthcare environment including technology and equipment, and therefore improve patient
outcomes.
The fourth factor is the fragmented medical systems. Fragmentation in healthcare
delivery is as a result of a number of differing factors. Some of them include but not limited to
outdated, limited medical systems (an example is the electronic medical records) and staffing
models that result in independent practices. Independent practices are known to deter

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communication among healthcare experts. Healthcare providers are well placed on improving
communication between one another by implementation of a medical tracking system that can
help manage transitions or referrals thereby allowing healthcare organizations to establish
coordinated care (The Joint Commission, 2016). Implementation and improvements to
coordinated care models stand to benefit healthcare organizations by ensuring that every patient
gets holistic and quality care.
There are a number of studies that recognize the impact of human factors on job
performance and the quality and safety in healthcare delivery. Firstly, the survey by Mao and his
colleagues recognizes and stresses the impact of human factors and goes forth to evaluate the
effectiveness of human factors interventions (Mao et al., 2015). The study recognizes and seeks
to steer away from the idea that the success of an evaluation heavily relies on a practitioner’s
experience level. The piece supports evaluation through a framework form that best describes
practice. Before evaluation interventions and how goals can be met and what needs to be done,
the piece begins which a critique of interventions that currently exist. In line with the evaluation,
the study majors on whether the interventions improve the healthcare practitioners’ outcomes
and, therefore patient safety and quality of practice (Mao et al., 2015). The results of the study
highlighted that the interventions had positive outcomes for healthcare practitioners.
Additionally, the study highlighted the need for an all-inclusive, science-informed and
standardized means to positively implement human factors interventions in healthcare.
The study by Hignett explores the human factor situation by looking at individuals in a
system, interactions with one another, and the system (Hignett et al., 2015). It then stresses the
need for redesigning systems, interfaces, and tasks. A broader mastery of human factors practices