The Need for Human Factors in the Sustainability Domain

The 2008 Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 52nd Annual Meeting includes an article entitled, “The Need for Human Factors in the Sustainability Domain,” by Scott A.C. Flemming, Antony Hilliard, and Greg A. Jamieson.  The article reviews research on behavioral interventions used to reduce energy consumption and organizes it into four categories: (1) behavioral taxonomy; (2) human decision-making biases; (3) intervention methods; and (4) descriptions of successful and unsuccessful interventions.

The authors also make several references to how the discipline of human factors and ergonomics can contribute design solutions that facilitate “sustainable resource consumption,” including:

• “Human Factors specialists have an opportunity to contribute their expertise in human-machine systems to help address these deficiencies and aid in shifting our societies toward sustainable resource consumption.” (p. 748)
• “Human factors engineering has the theory and technical expertise to analyze feedback systematically and contribute much to the design of new conservation technology.” (p. 748)
• “…we believe that human factors and ergonomics specialists have much to add by simply applying their skills and knowledge to the domain of sustainability.” (p. 752)
• “The theoretical frameworks already in use by human factors practitioners may be promising candidates to systematically integrate existing findings, identify research opportunities, and guide design of innovative feedback interventions.” (p. 752)

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What are Young Professionals Doing to Respond to the Economy?

My article, “What are Young Professionals Doing to Respond to the Economy?,” written on behalf of the Boise Young Professionals, was published in the May 18th issue of the Idaho Business Review.  It’s the first in a series of monthly articles the BYP will be publishing in the IBR highlighting how local young professionals are striving to connect, empower, and engage with the Boise Valley community.

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Idaho + Innovation = IdaVation 2009

On May 28^th, I’ll be joining many of Idaho’s entrepreneurs at IdaVation 2009.  One of the scheduled speakers is William W. Wilmot, Ph.D., co-author of “Innovation: The Five Discipline for Creating What Customers Want.” Last year, I took the opportunity to read his book and develop a presentation (185 KB, .pdf) for my coworkers that summarizes the basic points.  Although, I’ve provided the reader with a concise summary, I would highly recommend that individuals with an interest in innovation invest the time necessary to read it.

I’m looking forward to hearing Bill’s morning presentation, “From Farnsworth to the Future: Tips for Converting Idaho’s Ideas into Innovations” and participating in his afternoon breakout session on the NABCs of value propositions.

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eHealth Research Needs to Incorporate Human Factors

The May 2007 issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine included the article, “eHealth Research from the User’s Perspective” by Bradford W. Hess and Ben Shneiderman.

In essence, the authors call for eHealth research to “…combine best evidence from the user sciences (human factors engineering, human-computer interaction, psychology, and usability) with best evidence in medicine to create transformational improvements in the quality of care that medicine offers” (p. S97).  Moreover, they state:

• “As medical technology advances and the health information environment becomes more complex, health care becomes more vulnerable to error.” (p. S99)
• “…health information technologies will, and must, be part of the solution to guarantee that safeguards are engineered into the environment in which health care takes place.” (p. S99)
• “…combining the best of current medical knowledge with a patient’s own historical data in an age of ‘personalized medicine,’ will be next to impossible without the assistance of health information technology.” (p. S99)

Based on the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report “Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Healthcare System for the 21^st Century,” the authors identify four health system goals (safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, and timeliness) and eight types of users (patient, physician, family/friends, microunits of care, community, organizations for care, public health environment, and healthcare context) – resulting in a total of thirty-two “…particular ‘use case scenarios’ that the eHealth-enabled system must support” (p. S100).

Regarding the four “overarching” health systems goals, the authors elaborated on each, including:

Safety

• “A core tenet of the IOM’s prescriptive framework is that safety must be made an inherent attribute of the system.” (p. S100)
• “The principle is to make the healthcare system foolproof by designing the interface between components to be consistent, predictable, and controllable by all of its users.” (p. S100)
• “‘Human-centered’ testing methods applied within the context of “bench-to-bedside” research should be as important to the informatics enterprise as randomized clinical trials are for the introduction of new pharmaceutical agents.” (p. S100)
• “Patients and their families must be engineered into the system as a first line of defense against potential errors, not the last.” (p. S100)

Effectiveness

• “Designing from the user’s perspective takes a different orientation. It embraces the notion that effective decision making is a product of knowledge contained in the mind as well as knowledge stored in the environment. Taking this perspective, the emphasis shifts from personal heroics to creating a system of knowledge to guide evidence-based delivery, a shift that has been shown to yield significant improvements in patient outcomes and reductions in costs.” (p. S101)

Patient-Centeredness

• “All of the tools, conversations, and decisions that take place within a healthcare system must be measured against the benchmark of patient need in order to achieve systemwide objectives of safety and effectiveness.” (p. S101)
• “One aspect of patient-centeredness is customized care. eHealth applications will be part of this effort as they assist in providing the right information, to the right person, at the right time.” (p. S101) [This idea is advocated by Information Therapy - see Center for Information Therapy; Center for Information Therapy Blog; Healthwise; Kemper & Mettler, 2002; Mettler & Kemper, 2003; and Mettler & Kemper, 2005 for more details.]
• “One strategy for accomplishing that goal in eHealth is to adopt the principle of universal design. Under this principle, the structured environment is created to be equally accessible by all users, regardless of experience level or physical ability.” (p. S101)

Timeliness

• “Coordinated eHealth technologies can and should be developed to keep track of the individual needs of patients, and to ensure that all relevant members of the healthcare team, including the patients themselves, are notified in a timely manner.” (p. S102)

References

Kemper, D.W., & Mettler, M. (2002). Information therapy: Prescribed information as a reimbursable medical service. Boise, Idaho: Healthwise, Inc.

Mettler, M. & Kemper, D.W. (2003).  Information therapy: Health education one person at a time.  Health Promotion Practice, 4, 214-217.

Mettler, M. & Kemper, D.W. (2005).  Information therapy: The strategic role of prescribed information in disease self-management.  APLAR Journal of Rheumatology, 8, 69-76.

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Ergonomic Contributions to Company Strategies

The July 2009 issue of Applied Ergonomics includes an article entitled, “Ergonomics Contributions to Company Strategies,” by Jan Dul and W. Patrick Neumann.  In essence, the authors contend that one of the reasons why human factors and ergonomics hasn’t seen greater acceptance within the business community stems from a failure to explicitly demonstrate how interventions support company strategies and business goals.  Moreover, they state:

• “…if ergonomics contributes directly to the company’s strategy, and in the language of the company, it will be more accepted by business managers; it will be better embedded (internalized) in the organization; and its full potential as described in the IEA definition will be better actualized.” (p. 746)
• “…attention to ergonomics can be an important element of how a company realizes its competitive advantage.” (p. 749)
• “Capturing the full benefits of ergonomics therefore will require the deliberate integration of ergonomics into core strategy arenas of the organization.” (p. 749)
• “…we believe that explicit linking of ergonomics to the strategy and desired business outcomes is a promising way to realize sustainable growth for firms without the high social costs due to work-related ill health.” (p. 749)

The authors divide the concept of strategy into three areas where human factors and ergonomics can add value, including:

Business Function Strategies and Ergonomics

• Product design and innovation - “…ergonomics can be linked to strategies for product design and innovation by assuring that the products fit with the end-users and are easy to produce.” (p. 747)
• Operations engineering and process innovation – “…ergonomics can be linked to strategies for operations engineering and process innovation in order to assure that both production goals and worker well-being are safeguarded.” (p. 748)
• Marketing and communication – “…ergonomics can be linked to marketing and communication strategies by providing reasons for positive (well-being) consumer associations with the company’s products and production processes.” (p. 748)
• Human resource management – “…ergonomics can be linked to HRM strategies by assuring good working conditions and by engaging in participatory and job design approaches.” (p. 748)

Cross-Functional Strategies and Ergonomics

• Downsizing, lean production, business process re-engineering – “…ergonomics may help companies to control the negative human effects of the downsizing, lean production and business process re-engineering strategy in order to obtain the real benefits from this strategy.” (p. 748)
• Total quality management – “…ergonomics may contribute to TQM by ensuring that people contribute to quality.” (p. 749)

Corporate Strategies and Ergonomics

• Differentiation strategy – “…ergonomics could be linked to a company’s differentiation strategy by adding user-friendly and affective features to products and services.” (p. 749)
• Cost strategy – “…ergonomics could be linked to a company’s cost strategy by increasing labor productivity and reducing labor costs.” (p. 749)
• Resource-based view of the firm – “…ergonomics, with its ability to support employee retention, can help provide firms with a sustainable competitive advantage in the form of experienced, skilled employees who can perform their best for the company.” (p. 749)
• Service profit chain – “…by increasing employee wellbeing, ergonomics can be linked to a service profit chain strategy.” (p. 749)

The authors also address a couple key points to human factors and ergonomics researchers, educators, and practitioners, including:

• “We believe that ergonomists in research, education and practice (both internal ergonomists that are part of the organization and external consultants), who accept the broad definition of ergonomics presented in the introduction have a crucial role in: (a) developing the possible links between ergonomics and company’s strategies; (b) finding evidence for these links; and (c) communicating the links to the business stakeholders who are involved in strategy formulation and implementation.” (p. 750)
• “The successful ergonomist in research, education or practice is aware of business strategies and desired business outcomes; knows who are main stakeholders; knows what the benefits of ergonomics may be for these stakeholders; knows how ergonomics can be implemented to realize these benefits; and can communicate with the stakeholders in their own language and networks.” (p. 750)

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