80067612 - Armstrong Institute Improving Patient Safety with Human Factors Methods

Thursday, April 17, 2025, 8:00 AM - Wednesday, December 31, 2025, 5:00 PM, Online, Online, MD


The Improving Patient Safety with Human Factors Methods course equips healthcare professionals with practical knowledge and tools to proactively identify and mitigate system failures that contribute to human error and compromise patient safety. Grounded in the principles of human factors engineering, this interactive workshop explores how system design, technology integration, and workflows impact clinical performance and patient outcomes. Participants will gain hands-on experience with a variety of human factors tools—such as task analysis, usability testing, and failure mode and effects analysis—through real-world examples and engaging group exercises. These methods support safer care by identifying design flaws in medical devices, enhancing user interaction with technology, improving root cause analyses, and optimizing clinical processes to be more reliable and less error-prone. As healthcare delivery becomes increasingly complex, the application of human factors engineering has become essential to reducing harm, improving system resilience, and enhancing both provider and patient experiences. This course is offered in two formats: a two-day, in-person workshop held earlier in the year, and separate live virtual sessions offered later in the year. Both formats provide interactive, hands-on learning opportunities tailored to a multidisciplinary audience, including clinical and administrative leaders, frontline healthcare staff, patient safety officers, quality improvement professionals, pharmacists, engineers, risk managers, human factors specialists, government personnel, and others involved in the development, implementation, or evaluation of healthcare technologies and systems.

1. Accurately define key concepts and terminology associated with human factors engineering in the context of healthcare systems and patient safety.
2. Recognize and explain how human factors can be used within high-risk industries such as health care.
3. Apply specific human factors methods – e.g., task analysis, usability evaluation, root cause analysis – to proactively identify risks and system-level contributors to human error and patient harm.
4. Develop a human factors-informed intervention plan to address identified system vulnerabilities, with the goal of reducing errors and enhancing clinical performance, teamwork, and patient outcomes.

Mitigation of Relevant Financial Relationships

Johns Hopkins University adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education. Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity, including faculty, planners, reviewers or others are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with ineligible entities (commercial interests). All relevant conflicts of interest have been mitigated prior to the commencement of the activity.

No faculty are available for this activity at this time.