Improving Infection Prevention Practices Using Human Factors and Healthcare Safety System Design

Infection prevention and control (IPC) leaders are expected to effectively implement new surveillance technologies, build new mitigation strategies to prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), and create plans for addressing emerging pathogens. With a nationwide healthcare staffing shortage, IPC leaders need to find solutions that reduce cognitive load and foster long-term adoption and implementation to reduce HAIs. Human factors engineering (HFE), which focuses on creating tools, devices, and systems that factor in human capabilities, constraints, and characteristics, can be a critical methodology in reducing the 1.7 million HAIs that occur each year.

ECRI’s learning and action virtual workshop, Improving Infection Prevention Practices Using Human Factors and Healthcare Safety System Design, will focus on how human factors and systems design engineering can be used to improve infection prevention processes that affect clinical and safety outcomes. Over two weeks, participants will engage in a combination of live and asynchronous virtual sessions facilitated by ECRI subject matter experts in infection prevention, HFE, and healthcare safety system design.

While learning important principles of HFE and system design, participants will engage in a group assignment, coached by infection prevention experts, to apply the learned principles to design an improvement plan that focuses on an infection prevention process.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of the training, participants will be able to:
• Understand how human factors and system design engineering can be applied to healthcare and infection prevention challenges
• Discuss how a systems-based approach can be used to identify factors that contribute to breakdowns in infection prevention processes
• Review human factors methods used to understand human-work system interfaces for infection prevention processes
• Understand how improving ergonomics can affect safety and clinical outcomes
• Describe how to use healthcare safety system design tools to plan for improvements
• Describe how to design solutions that are strong and have system impact for infection prevention
• Describe how infection prevention data can be used to design key performance metrics to measure improvement and sustainability
• Design an improvement plan for an infection prevention problem using human factors and healthcare safety system design methodology

Event Details

• Who should attend: infection prevention leaders, infection preventionists, quality and performance improvement professionals, healthcare human factors engineers
• Competency level: proficient to expert
• Cost: $1,400 USD per person
• Continuing educational units: This activity has been approved for up to a total of 9.25 credits each of AMA PRA Category 1 credits; California State nursing contact hours; and CPPS CE hours
• Where: Link to virtual platform will be provided upon registration
• When: September 18-29, 2023

WEEK ONE

Monday, September 18, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET, live session

Learning Module 1: Introduction to how human factors and system design engineering can be applied to healthcare and infection prevention

Tuesday, September 19, 1-hour asynchronous session through ECRI Learning site

Learning Module 2: Discuss how to classify and analyze contributing system and human factors that lead to HAIs

Wednesday, September 20, 1-hour asynchronous session through ECRI Learning site

Learning Module 3: Review human factors methods used to understand human-work system interfaces for infection prevention processes

Wednesday, September 20, 1-hour Group Work Session to be scheduled between 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET (exact time will be announced on first day of course)

Thursday, September 21, 30-minute asynchronous session through ECRI Learning site

Learning Module 4: Describe how to assess the environment and improve the ergonomics of infection prevention processes

Friday, September 22, 1-hour Group Work Session to be scheduled between 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET (exact time will be announced on first day of course)

WEEK TWO

Monday, September 25, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET, live session

Learning Module 5: Describe how to analyze an infection prevention system design and how to test effectiveness of redesign using human factors methods

Tuesday, September 26, 30-minute asynchronous session through ECRI Learning site

Learning Module 6: Describe how to design infection prevention solutions that are strong and have system impact

Tuesday, September 26, 1-hour Group Work Session to be scheduled between 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET (exact time will be announced on first day of course)

Wednesday, September 27, 30-minute asynchronous session through ECRI Learning site

Learning Module 7: Describe how infection prevention data can be used to design key performance indicators to measure the impact of change

Thursday, September 28, 1-hour Group Work Session to be scheduled between 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET (exact time will be announced on first day of course)

Friday, September 29, 12:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET, live session

Final group presentations and course wrap-up

Speakers

Patrice D. Tremoulet, PhD., Human Factors Scientist

Director of Human Factors Engineering
Dr. Tremoulet is the Director of Human Factors Engineering at ECRI. She joined ECRI as a consultant in 2016 and helped incorporate usability testing into medical device evaluations while also serving as a Professor of Human Factors Psychology at Rowan University. Before 2016, she spearheaded a broad range of advanced human-computer interaction research at AT&T, Lucent Bell Laboratories, Rutgers University, Lockheed Martin, and Drexel University. Dr. Tremoulet has considerable experience designing, building, and assessing advanced user interfaces for complex, data-intensive systems. She specializes in research that uses information about human behavior, abilities, and limitations to design and evaluate tools that improve safety, productivity, and/or health. Dr. Tremoulet earned a BSE in Operations Research from Princeton University, an MS in Operations Research from Stanford University, and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Rutgers University.

Shannon Davila MSN, RN, CPPS, CIC, CPHQ, FAPIC

Director Total Systems Safety, ECRI
With a clinical background in adult critical care nursing, Shannon specializes in infection prevention and healthcare quality improvement. Shannon has provided leadership throughout several state and national patient safety programs, including the New Jersey Sepsis Learning Action Collaborative and CMS Hospital Improvement Innovation Network. Shannon has co-led both the national CMS Sepsis and Antimicrobial Stewardship Affinity Groups. She has authored a book and published several articles that focus on the importance of infection prevention. In 2016, Shannon was honored with the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) Heroes of Infection Prevention Award. She has served as APIC Northern New Jersey Chapter President and Chapter Legislative Representative. Shannon is certified in infection control, healthcare quality, as a TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer and High Reliability coach. She received her BSN from the University of Southern Maine, her MSN from Walden University, and in 2020 was inducted into the APIC Fellow program.

Mary C. Magee, MSN, RN, CPHQ, CPPS

Senior Patient Safety / Quality Analyst and Consultant, ECRI
In her role with ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, Mary provides liaison services for member organizations, reviews and analyzes adverse event reports, and uses the information to develop written material, continuing education programs, webinars, and presentations to educate healthcare facilities about regulatory, quality improvement, and patient safety issues. Before joining ECRI, she was Senior Director of Quality, Regulatory Affairs, and Patient Safety for a large multihospital health system. She has extensive experience leading multiple successful routine and for-cause CMS, Department of Health, and Joint Commission surveys; instituted and maintained accreditation and regulatory preparedness; and conceived and lead the successful implementation of the strategic direction for quality, safety, and performance improvement.

Priyanka Shah, MS

Senior Project Officer, ECRI
In her current role at ECRI, Priyanka Shah evaluates medical devices, investigates system failures, develops practical guidance for healthcare facilities, conducts accident investigations, and consults healthcare facilities on pre-purchase selection and appropriate use of medical equipment and health IT systems. She is the lead subject matter expert on patient monitoring, alarm management, telehealth, usability testing, human factors, health information technology safety, and electronic health records. Priyanka came to ECRI with a background in research engineering and program management.

James Davis, MSN, RN, CIC, HEM, CCRN-K, FAPIC

Manager Infection Prevention and Control Services, ECRI
Jim Davis has 25-plus years of nursing experience spanning long-term care, adult critical care, clinical decision support, education, nurse management, and infection prevention. In his current role at ECRI, he serves as Manager of Infection Prevention Control, managing local and national response and multidisciplinary teams and delivering actionable plans to mitigate or eliminate threats related to infectious pathogens. He has designed version 2 of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority’s long-term care healthcare-acquired infection reporting system and analytics programs and has provided educational programs about infection control topics for risk management groups and patient safety organizations.

Hillary Hei, MPH, CIC, LSSGB, HEM

Infection Preventionist, ECRI
Before joining ECRI in 2020, Hillary honed her infection control career in the pediatric world for five years. She became certified in Infection Control in 2017 and became a certified Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt in 2019. As a contractor for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Hillary serves as part of the Infection Control and Outbreak Response team for long-term care facilities, providing outbreak mitigation strategies and direct consultation to nontraditional healthcare settings. She is a member of APIC and serves on the national Research Committee as the liaison for the American Journal of Infection Control.