A few weeks ago I was teaching about human factors engineering to a group of hospitalists at the Society for Hospital Medicine meeting.  Many of the hospitalists (physicians focused on delivering care mostly in hospitals) in the audience had a minor or major role in making things safer in thier organization.  Some had no idea about human factors engineering, or had heard it described as the study of factors that make us flawed humans. 

Personally, I like my former co-worker’s definition that focuses on ergonomics.  Since his early days at NASA was around engineers building new crew capsules, he defined human factors engineers as ”the group of people who measure people’s butt cheeks to design the seat so it fits!”

I have tried many methods to introduce HFE to novices, but the two main methods are interactive exercises and demonstrations that put people in position of seeing things that were previously underappreciated.  An exercise I tried for the first time at the SHM meeting was to have two groups of 2 people try to find the location of an AED.  The scenario was that I suffered a heart attack and they had called 911 and were pursuing an AED that they believed was mounted on the wall somewhere in the hotel conference center. [previously, I have written about signage for AEDs].

On each team, one person was assigned to find the AED and think aloud about their plan and other thoughts.  The other person was to record those words and actions – especially where the searcher was looking and resources they sought to find the AED.  The room had exits to different hallways for each team to began searching. 

In short, one person immediately asked hotel personnel, who did not know.  Then they asked conference information desk, who pointed across the middle, large hallway to the easily visible AED sign and wall storage unit.  The other person just had instincts to look centrally in the 400 foot main hallway, and was correct.  Neither used their smart phone, their map included in the conference agenda book, or other tools you might consider if not in a hurry – or, where they in a conference room answering questions in a laid back inteview.  There are a few studies on so-called wayfinding for designing hallway signs, but I have not seen any for searching and finding AEDs?  Do any of you know of some?

Interestingly, when someone did look at the hotel map, it provided locations of three things (besides room numbers-names):

1. Bathrooms
2. ATMs
3. Where you were allowed to smoke

In debriefing the two physicians who were frantically looking for the AED, they did provide one CAUTION to me about doing this exercise again:  make sure the people looking for the AED tell the information desk or other personnel that it is an EXERCISE, and no need to call 911!