Based on recent research, this book discusses how to improve quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness in patient care through the application of human factors and ergonomics principles. It provides guidance for those involved with the design and application of systems and devices for effective and safe healthcare delivery from both a patient and staff perspective.

Its huge range of chapters covers everything from the proper design of bed rails to the most efficient design of operating rooms, from the development of quality products to the rating of staff patient interaction. It considers ways to prevent elderly patient falls and ways to make best use of electronic health records. It covers staff intractions with patients as well as staff interaction with computers and medical devices. It also provides way to improve organizational aspects in a healthcare setting, and approaches to modeling and analysis specifically targeting those work aspects unique to healthcare.

Explicitly, the book contains the following subject areas:

I. Healthcare and Service Delivery
II. Patient Safety
III. Modeling and Analytical Approaches
IV. Human-System Interface: Computers & Medical Devices
V. Organizational Aspects

This book would be of special value internationally to those researchers and practitioners involved in various aspects of healthcare delivery.

Seven other titles in the Advances in Human Factors and Ergonomics Series are:

Advances in Applied Digital Human Modeling

Advances in Cross-Cultural Decision Making

Advances in Cognitive Ergonomics

Advances in Occupational, Social and Organizational Ergonomics

Advances in Human Factors, Ergonomics and Safety in Manufacturing and Service Industries

Advances in Ergonomics Modeling & Usability Evaluation

Advances in Neuroergonomics and Human Factors of Special Populations