A. C. Easty1,2,A. L. Cassano-Piché1,M. Griffin1, Y-L. Lin1,P. Trbovich1,2,3
Industries such as aviation and nuclear power have greatly improved their safety performance
through the application of human factors methods to the design, development, selection and deployment
of a range of technologies and work processes. Health care safety performance generally lags behind
these industries and would benefit from a similar application of human factors methods. Clinical
engineers are in an ideal position to acquire and apply this human factors knowledge, and lead its
adoption in health care. This paper describes a text that has been written specifically for clinical engineers
and others who design, develop, select and support the use of health care technologies, to enable them to
learn the key methods of human factors and adopt them as part of their ongoing work. Early indications
are that these approaches help to ensure that health care technologies are used more safely and effectively,
and it is hoped that large-scale adoption will result in a noticeable and worthwhile improvement in overall
health care safety. The described text is now ready and has been published in English on the IFMBE
website. It is available as a free download in PDF format. Clinical engineers and others working around
the world in the area of health technology are encouraged to learn and adopt these methods, and use them
as appropriate in their local setting. At time of writing, plans are underway for a translation of this book
into Spanish. Once completed, this version will also be made available online at no charge. The authors
encourage readers to contact them with their experiences, and the aim is to build a worldwide community
that gradually adopts these methods and helps to drive safety improvements in health care.