International journal of environmental research and public health/International journal of environmental research and public health, Apr 30, 2024
With a growing need for long-term care facilities in general, and for specialized dementia units ... more With a growing need for long-term care facilities in general, and for specialized dementia units in particular, it is important to ensure that the architectural layouts of such facilities support the well-being of both the residents and the unit caregivers. This study aimed to investigate correlations between the support provided by the architectural layout of long-term care units for enhancing residents’ well-being and for decreasing unit caregivers’ burnout and increasing their resilience—as layouts may impact each party differently. The Psycho Spatial Evaluation Tool was utilized to assess the support provided by the layouts of seventeen long-term care units (ten regular nursing units and seven specialized dementia units) for the residents’ physical and social well-being (five dimensions); a questionnaire was used to measure the unit caregivers’ burnout and resilience. When analyzing layouts’ support for residents’ physical and social well-being, inconsistencies emerged regarding correlations with caregivers’ burnout and resilience across the two types of long-term care units. Supporting residents’ physical well-being was correlated with increased caregiver resilience in dementia units, and with increased burnout and decreased resilience in regular nursing units. Layouts supporting social well-being showed inconsistent correlations with caregivers’ resilience indexes in dementia units, and with burnout and resilience indexes in regular nursing units. The findings underscore the role of the architectural layout of long-term care units in enhancing residents’ wellbeing; the results also highlight the possible unintentional yet negative impact of the layout on the caregivers’ burnout and resilience. This study emphasizes the need to identify and rectify design shortcomings as a means of enhancing residents’ well-being, while increasing the unit caregivers’ resilience and decreasing their burnout. These insights should be addressed when developing strategies and interventions for ensuring optimal care environments for all parties involved.
Hospital wayfinding systems that are based solely on signage do not provide adequate solutions fo... more Hospital wayfinding systems that are based solely on signage do not provide adequate solutions for wayfinding needs, especially for users with impairments. Moreover, the interaction between user characteristics and the inner space of the building also determines wayfinding efficiency. The aims of this study, therefore, were to identify architectural features that affect spatial orientation and wayfinding behaviors; demonstrate the implementation of a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for improving wayfinding in a diverse range of users; and produce a set of quantitative values (i.e., weights) for each selected architectural feature, based on the individual's preferences. Doing so could enable the formulating of practical design guidelines for hospital buildings, tailored to the needs and abilities of the users, to minimize disorientation and confusionas demonstrated in this paper through a case study. The MCDM approach was chosen as it is based on observations whereby wayfinding resembles a continuous decision-making process, throughout which, users continuously select those architectural features that they perceive as having the greatest wayfinding value.
Studies indicate that verbal instructions may impact associations between gender and wayfinding p... more Studies indicate that verbal instructions may impact associations between gender and wayfinding performance (measured via relative direction pointing accuracy and walking pace). Following the increasing use of digital navigation applications in indoor environments, and their implications on acquiring and processing spatial information, the aim of this study is to evaluate the stability of previously established associations. The study included 34 participants (16 females) aged 24-34 and was conducted in an indoor hospital setting. In addition to using a navigation application, one of three types of verbal instructions (route, survey, or none) were given in each wayfinding scenario. Self-reported wayfinding strategies were also assessed. The findings indicate that male participants made fewer pointing accuracy errors and walked faster than females, regardless of the type of instructions given, implying that the impact of naturally employed wayfinding strategies by gender (route for females; survey for males) on wayfinding performance may be more dominant than that of navigational devices. In addition, when males and females were exposed to their unnatural wayfinding strategy, no significant differences were seen in either group's self-reported wayfinding strategies. These findings may suggest that applying survey knowledge to females may improve their indoor wayfinding.
Aims(1) Exploring nurses’ perceptions of issues that impacted the quality of patient care and the... more Aims(1) Exploring nurses’ perceptions of issues that impacted the quality of patient care and their own performance on COVID‐19 wards; (2) examining nurses’ perceptions of how these issues impacted their psychological state and level of performance; and (3) presenting recommendations for improving healthcare policies.BackgroundNurses played a critical role in caring for hospitalized COVID‐19 patients and managing the disease.MethodsSemistructured interviews were conducted with 50 nurses (32 females), aged 31–58 years, 6–37 years’ tenure, from eight hospitals across Israel. Prior to working in COVID‐19 wards, they worked in internal medicine, emergency rooms, or intensive care units. Based on the COREQ checklist, these interviews were recorded and transcribed, and categorized into themes and subthemes.FindingsThe findings indicate that the unpreparedness of healthcare systems for the pandemic outbreak rendered nurses paying a high price at the personal and professional levels, which ...
Shared perceptions of a task among those responsible for its completion are important for achievi... more Shared perceptions of a task among those responsible for its completion are important for achieving successful outcomes. This study proposes a framework for eliciting various aspects of team members' "mental models" (TMMs) of complex medical tasks. The intention is to provide 'proof of concept' for a methodology to measure similarities and differences between team members' perceptions of selected attributes of the task. Applying our framework in a gynecology ward, we use cognitive interviewing and concept mapping to reveal differences between the TMMs of doctor and nurse teams. These group differences are found to reflect limited awareness of the other group's level of involvement, workload, responsibilities and contributions to quality of care. We argue that such differences may lead to frustration, conflict, poor teamwork and risks to patient safety; but once identified, and subject to certain limitations, the differences could be used to develop interventions that will enhance teamwork.
International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 2005
In 2001, production technicians at Intel's facility for manufacturing semiconductors in Kiryat-Ga... more In 2001, production technicians at Intel's facility for manufacturing semiconductors in Kiryat-Gat began complaining of wrist discomfort and pain while using trackball work stations, the primary equipment for inputting data to their production environment. The complaints were received with considerable seriousness, indicating that the Incident Free Culture-a proactive attitude towards ergonomic matters-that had been created at the plant when it was established in 1997 had firmly taken root. The author of this paper, the plant's ergonomics engineer (EE), was authorized to deal with the problem but within very strict constraints. Production of the silicon wafers could not be interrupted in any way and the clean-room environment had to be maintained. The EE contacted the Department of Industrial Engineering at Ben-Gurion University in nearby Beer-Sheva and a two-part investigation program was devised to determine, within the limitations imposed by Intel, the source of the workers' complaints. The first part of the program, a pilot investigation based on a sample of 20 technicians, indicated the need for extending the workstation's trackball angle from 91 to 241 to enable the technicians to work with their wrist in a more neutral posture. These results were subsequently confirmed by the main study involving 62 technicians divided into control and test groups. These results led to the implementation of the new trackball angle on all 900 workstations on the plant-manufacturing floor and became part of the baseline for future designs of all Intel plants worldwide. Intel's Incident Free Culture, the involvement of academia, and the immediate response to the subsequent ergonomic problems are all relatively new phenomena in Israel and an indication of the state of ergonomics in the country. In addition to the impact upon Intel plants themselves, both in Israel and abroad, the lessons to be drawn from these phenomena are being closely scrutinized by Israeli industry as well as various state bodies for further, more extended application.
Ergonomics in Design: The Quarterly of Human Factors Applications, 2003
Positive reinforcement and feedback through one-on-one interaction help reduce employees' exp... more Positive reinforcement and feedback through one-on-one interaction help reduce employees' exposure to ergonomic risks in the workplace.
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, 2001
A study was conducted to compare the economics of four systems of weed management under three irr... more A study was conducted to compare the economics of four systems of weed management under three irrigation regimes and tillage systems. The effects of weed management system and irrigation regime and their interactions on peas and lettuce yields were investigated. The research project utilized a factorial design with type of weed management system crossed with irrigation regime and tillage system.
Despite the benefits that digital wayfinding systems offer hospital visitors and patients as well... more Despite the benefits that digital wayfinding systems offer hospital visitors and patients as well as the hospitals themselves, their actual presence in hospitals is low. This study, carried out in twenty hospitals, presents an evaluation of these systems. Interviews with hospital managers (with and without systems) indicate considerations and evidence-based information that are new to the literature such as reducing task complexity and overall user stress and anxiety; enhancing user control and empowerment; decreasing the amount of time medical staff must devote to providing directions to patients; and reducing rate of delayed and missed appointments. While these systems have considerable potential for assisting the elderly and those with disabilities, this potential is not being realized. Findings may benefit system planners, hospital administrators and eventually provide users with more suitable systems upon which to rely.
Industry 4.0 systems in general and advanced manufacturing systems such as collaborative robots, ... more Industry 4.0 systems in general and advanced manufacturing systems such as collaborative robots, in particular, are characterized by a high level of complexity leading to new safety concerns. Safety, specifically for collaborative robots, has been mainly addressed from a technical perspective, to safeguard the physical safety of the operator. Concerns have been raised regarding less focus in Industry 4.0 literature on how other factors, such as psychosocial can produce safety-related risks for the operator in human-robot collaboration. This paper identifies and classifies the risk factors in a human-robot collaboration that have been described in research papers in the last decade. The resulting five classes constitute dimensions that will be used as preliminary building blocks for a safety evaluation framework to be developed in the next step. By evaluating the resulting classes with the underlying dimensions of contemporary socio-technical thinking, this paper demonstrates that these five classes offer a comprehensive, system-wide perspective including risk factors beyond technological considerations. Topics emerging from new risks related to the impact of working with collaborative robots, such as psychosocial, ethical, and cyber risk factors will need to be taken into account in the risk factors that are important to identify, assess and mitigate before working with collaborative robots. Operator involvement and participation, especially throughout the risk assessment and mitigation cycle are recommended as new areas of attention in human-robot collaboration. Going forward, one challenge will be the agility and adaptability of legislation to at least keep track of risk factors emerging from continuously changing technologies and to translate them into practically applicable tools for enterprises and design engineers implementing collaborative applications. Another key challenge will be the measurement of the new emerging and sometimes less technological risks.
Performing root cause analysis in technical systems is usually challenging owing to the complex f... more Performing root cause analysis in technical systems is usually challenging owing to the complex failure associations which often exist between inter-connected system components. The recent adoption of maintenance management systems in industry has enhanced the collection of maintenance data which could assist practitioners derive meaningful failure associations embedded in the data. However, root cause analysis in the maintenance domain is dominated by the use of qualitative and semi-quantitative approaches. Such approaches, however, rely on expert elicitations whereof this elicitation process often introduces bias in the root cause analysis process. On the other hand, quantitative techniques for root cause analysis , for instance, fault trees and Bayesian networks are often limited to analyzing root causes in fairly simple systems . Moreover, the quantitative techniques seldom model the failure dependencies linked to the empirical failure events. Hence, to address these challenges, a novel data exploration methodology for root cause analysis is proposed which consists of four steps: 1) data collection and standardization step; 2) data exploration framework incorporating multivariate and cluster analysis; 3) causal mapping; and 4) maintenance strategy selection. The methodology is demonstrated in the application case of thermal power maintenance data. Moreover, the methodology is compared with two conventional qualitative root cause analysis techniques -Ishikawa cause-and-effect diagram, and the '5-whys' analysis. A detailed discussion is presented whereof the added value of the methodology for maintenance decision support is demonstrated.
Cotemporary efforts for improving healthcare safety are almost exclusively dependent on the study... more Cotemporary efforts for improving healthcare safety are almost exclusively dependent on the study of adverse events as their primary information source. Investigations of adverse events have had an important role and contribution to the recognition of the magnitude of the healthcare problem, but are of a limited scientific value. Error investigations are the wisdom of hindsight, based on partial and biased sample, lacking base rate reference and distorted by reporter's memory and interests. This paper describes an alternative approach based on self reports of medical staff, on daily reoccurring hazards and performance difficulties, representing human factors and safety aspects. Reports are evaluated by a human factors team, and corrective steps are proposed, and backed by management. We describe the logic and elements of the new approach, and bring results from four wards belonging to two hospitals. These results are compared with data obtained in 5 years, using conventional incident reporting systems.
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2012
Objective: The aim was to develop a reporting system for collecting human factors problem reports... more Objective: The aim was to develop a reporting system for collecting human factors problem reports to establish a database to guide activities for improving health care quality and patient safety. Background: The current error and incident report systems do not provide sufficient and adequate coverage of the factors contributing to impaired safety and care quality. They fail to examine the range of difficulties that clinical staff encounters in the conduct of daily work. Method: A voluntary problem-reporting system was developed to be used by hospital wards’ clinicians and was tested in four wards of two hospitals in Israel. The system is based on human factors–formatted problem reports submitted by physicians and nurses on difficulties and hazards they confront in their daily work. Reports are grouped and evaluated by a team of human factor professionals. Results: A total of 359 reports were collected in the wards during 12 weeks, as compared with a total of 200 incidents reports th...
Most studies concerned with participative ergonomic (PE) interventions, focus on organizational r... more Most studies concerned with participative ergonomic (PE) interventions, focus on organizational rather than group level analysis. By implementing an intervention at a manufacturing plant, the current study, utilizing advanced information systems, measured the effect of line-supervisor leadership on employee exposure to risks. The study evaluated which PE dimensions (i.e., extent of workforce involvement, diversity of reporter role types and scope of analysis) are related to such exposure at the group level. The data for the study was extracted from two separate computerized systems (workforce medical records of 791 employees and an intranet reporting system) during a two-year period. While the results did not confirm the effect of line-supervisor leadership on subordinates' exposure to risks, they did demonstrate relationships between PE dimensions and the employees' exposure to risks. The results support the suggested level of analysis and demonstrate that group-based analysis facilitates the assimilation of preventive interventions. When seeking to determine the best interventional approach, one question is whether to focus on the organizational level, expressing policy-making aspects, or at the group level, expressing supervisory practices. This question is relevant, since, in addition to cross-level
a b s t r a c t "Management by walking around" (MBWA) is a practice that has aroused much interes... more a b s t r a c t "Management by walking around" (MBWA) is a practice that has aroused much interest in management science and practice. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate adaptation of this practice to safety management. We describe a three-year long case study that collected empirical data in which a modified MBWA was practiced in order to improve safety in a semiconductor fabrication facility. The main modification involved integrating an information system with the MBWA in order to create a practice that would generate safety leadership development and an organizational safety learning mechanism, while promoting employee safety participation. The results of the case study demonstrate that the SMBWA practice facilitated thousands of tours in which safety leadership behaviors were practiced by managers and by employees (employees performed five times as many tours as managers). The information system collected information about safety behaviors and safety conditions that could not otherwise be obtained. Thus, this study presents a new organizational safety practice SMBWA, and demonstrates the ways in which SMBWA may improve safety in organizations.
Journal of health services research & policy, Oct 19, 2016
Wayfinding in hospitals is a complex problem since patients, who are likely to be under stress, m... more Wayfinding in hospitals is a complex problem since patients, who are likely to be under stress, may have to navigate their way to multiple locations in the course of a single visit. While good wayfinding design can reduce stress, poor wayfinding can not only increase individuals' anxiety but also generate additional costs for the hospital due to: lost time among staff members who need to direct patients rather than concentrate on their designated task; missed appointments or delayed meetings; and additional security staff to ensure that patients do not enter restricted areas. We investigated to what extent a questionnaire, developed by collecting data about the subjective experiences of wayfinders with diverse needs and abilities, could uncover wayfinding problems in hospitals. The methodology we developed involved four steps: creating an initial questionnaire based on the literature; customizing the questionnaire to a hospital environment; validating and verifying the questionn...
International journal of environmental research and public health/International journal of environmental research and public health, Apr 30, 2024
With a growing need for long-term care facilities in general, and for specialized dementia units ... more With a growing need for long-term care facilities in general, and for specialized dementia units in particular, it is important to ensure that the architectural layouts of such facilities support the well-being of both the residents and the unit caregivers. This study aimed to investigate correlations between the support provided by the architectural layout of long-term care units for enhancing residents’ well-being and for decreasing unit caregivers’ burnout and increasing their resilience—as layouts may impact each party differently. The Psycho Spatial Evaluation Tool was utilized to assess the support provided by the layouts of seventeen long-term care units (ten regular nursing units and seven specialized dementia units) for the residents’ physical and social well-being (five dimensions); a questionnaire was used to measure the unit caregivers’ burnout and resilience. When analyzing layouts’ support for residents’ physical and social well-being, inconsistencies emerged regarding correlations with caregivers’ burnout and resilience across the two types of long-term care units. Supporting residents’ physical well-being was correlated with increased caregiver resilience in dementia units, and with increased burnout and decreased resilience in regular nursing units. Layouts supporting social well-being showed inconsistent correlations with caregivers’ resilience indexes in dementia units, and with burnout and resilience indexes in regular nursing units. The findings underscore the role of the architectural layout of long-term care units in enhancing residents’ wellbeing; the results also highlight the possible unintentional yet negative impact of the layout on the caregivers’ burnout and resilience. This study emphasizes the need to identify and rectify design shortcomings as a means of enhancing residents’ well-being, while increasing the unit caregivers’ resilience and decreasing their burnout. These insights should be addressed when developing strategies and interventions for ensuring optimal care environments for all parties involved.
Hospital wayfinding systems that are based solely on signage do not provide adequate solutions fo... more Hospital wayfinding systems that are based solely on signage do not provide adequate solutions for wayfinding needs, especially for users with impairments. Moreover, the interaction between user characteristics and the inner space of the building also determines wayfinding efficiency. The aims of this study, therefore, were to identify architectural features that affect spatial orientation and wayfinding behaviors; demonstrate the implementation of a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for improving wayfinding in a diverse range of users; and produce a set of quantitative values (i.e., weights) for each selected architectural feature, based on the individual's preferences. Doing so could enable the formulating of practical design guidelines for hospital buildings, tailored to the needs and abilities of the users, to minimize disorientation and confusionas demonstrated in this paper through a case study. The MCDM approach was chosen as it is based on observations whereby wayfinding resembles a continuous decision-making process, throughout which, users continuously select those architectural features that they perceive as having the greatest wayfinding value.
Studies indicate that verbal instructions may impact associations between gender and wayfinding p... more Studies indicate that verbal instructions may impact associations between gender and wayfinding performance (measured via relative direction pointing accuracy and walking pace). Following the increasing use of digital navigation applications in indoor environments, and their implications on acquiring and processing spatial information, the aim of this study is to evaluate the stability of previously established associations. The study included 34 participants (16 females) aged 24-34 and was conducted in an indoor hospital setting. In addition to using a navigation application, one of three types of verbal instructions (route, survey, or none) were given in each wayfinding scenario. Self-reported wayfinding strategies were also assessed. The findings indicate that male participants made fewer pointing accuracy errors and walked faster than females, regardless of the type of instructions given, implying that the impact of naturally employed wayfinding strategies by gender (route for females; survey for males) on wayfinding performance may be more dominant than that of navigational devices. In addition, when males and females were exposed to their unnatural wayfinding strategy, no significant differences were seen in either group's self-reported wayfinding strategies. These findings may suggest that applying survey knowledge to females may improve their indoor wayfinding.
Aims(1) Exploring nurses’ perceptions of issues that impacted the quality of patient care and the... more Aims(1) Exploring nurses’ perceptions of issues that impacted the quality of patient care and their own performance on COVID‐19 wards; (2) examining nurses’ perceptions of how these issues impacted their psychological state and level of performance; and (3) presenting recommendations for improving healthcare policies.BackgroundNurses played a critical role in caring for hospitalized COVID‐19 patients and managing the disease.MethodsSemistructured interviews were conducted with 50 nurses (32 females), aged 31–58 years, 6–37 years’ tenure, from eight hospitals across Israel. Prior to working in COVID‐19 wards, they worked in internal medicine, emergency rooms, or intensive care units. Based on the COREQ checklist, these interviews were recorded and transcribed, and categorized into themes and subthemes.FindingsThe findings indicate that the unpreparedness of healthcare systems for the pandemic outbreak rendered nurses paying a high price at the personal and professional levels, which ...
Shared perceptions of a task among those responsible for its completion are important for achievi... more Shared perceptions of a task among those responsible for its completion are important for achieving successful outcomes. This study proposes a framework for eliciting various aspects of team members' "mental models" (TMMs) of complex medical tasks. The intention is to provide 'proof of concept' for a methodology to measure similarities and differences between team members' perceptions of selected attributes of the task. Applying our framework in a gynecology ward, we use cognitive interviewing and concept mapping to reveal differences between the TMMs of doctor and nurse teams. These group differences are found to reflect limited awareness of the other group's level of involvement, workload, responsibilities and contributions to quality of care. We argue that such differences may lead to frustration, conflict, poor teamwork and risks to patient safety; but once identified, and subject to certain limitations, the differences could be used to develop interventions that will enhance teamwork.
International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 2005
In 2001, production technicians at Intel's facility for manufacturing semiconductors in Kiryat-Ga... more In 2001, production technicians at Intel's facility for manufacturing semiconductors in Kiryat-Gat began complaining of wrist discomfort and pain while using trackball work stations, the primary equipment for inputting data to their production environment. The complaints were received with considerable seriousness, indicating that the Incident Free Culture-a proactive attitude towards ergonomic matters-that had been created at the plant when it was established in 1997 had firmly taken root. The author of this paper, the plant's ergonomics engineer (EE), was authorized to deal with the problem but within very strict constraints. Production of the silicon wafers could not be interrupted in any way and the clean-room environment had to be maintained. The EE contacted the Department of Industrial Engineering at Ben-Gurion University in nearby Beer-Sheva and a two-part investigation program was devised to determine, within the limitations imposed by Intel, the source of the workers' complaints. The first part of the program, a pilot investigation based on a sample of 20 technicians, indicated the need for extending the workstation's trackball angle from 91 to 241 to enable the technicians to work with their wrist in a more neutral posture. These results were subsequently confirmed by the main study involving 62 technicians divided into control and test groups. These results led to the implementation of the new trackball angle on all 900 workstations on the plant-manufacturing floor and became part of the baseline for future designs of all Intel plants worldwide. Intel's Incident Free Culture, the involvement of academia, and the immediate response to the subsequent ergonomic problems are all relatively new phenomena in Israel and an indication of the state of ergonomics in the country. In addition to the impact upon Intel plants themselves, both in Israel and abroad, the lessons to be drawn from these phenomena are being closely scrutinized by Israeli industry as well as various state bodies for further, more extended application.
Ergonomics in Design: The Quarterly of Human Factors Applications, 2003
Positive reinforcement and feedback through one-on-one interaction help reduce employees' exp... more Positive reinforcement and feedback through one-on-one interaction help reduce employees' exposure to ergonomic risks in the workplace.
Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, 2001
A study was conducted to compare the economics of four systems of weed management under three irr... more A study was conducted to compare the economics of four systems of weed management under three irrigation regimes and tillage systems. The effects of weed management system and irrigation regime and their interactions on peas and lettuce yields were investigated. The research project utilized a factorial design with type of weed management system crossed with irrigation regime and tillage system.
Despite the benefits that digital wayfinding systems offer hospital visitors and patients as well... more Despite the benefits that digital wayfinding systems offer hospital visitors and patients as well as the hospitals themselves, their actual presence in hospitals is low. This study, carried out in twenty hospitals, presents an evaluation of these systems. Interviews with hospital managers (with and without systems) indicate considerations and evidence-based information that are new to the literature such as reducing task complexity and overall user stress and anxiety; enhancing user control and empowerment; decreasing the amount of time medical staff must devote to providing directions to patients; and reducing rate of delayed and missed appointments. While these systems have considerable potential for assisting the elderly and those with disabilities, this potential is not being realized. Findings may benefit system planners, hospital administrators and eventually provide users with more suitable systems upon which to rely.
Industry 4.0 systems in general and advanced manufacturing systems such as collaborative robots, ... more Industry 4.0 systems in general and advanced manufacturing systems such as collaborative robots, in particular, are characterized by a high level of complexity leading to new safety concerns. Safety, specifically for collaborative robots, has been mainly addressed from a technical perspective, to safeguard the physical safety of the operator. Concerns have been raised regarding less focus in Industry 4.0 literature on how other factors, such as psychosocial can produce safety-related risks for the operator in human-robot collaboration. This paper identifies and classifies the risk factors in a human-robot collaboration that have been described in research papers in the last decade. The resulting five classes constitute dimensions that will be used as preliminary building blocks for a safety evaluation framework to be developed in the next step. By evaluating the resulting classes with the underlying dimensions of contemporary socio-technical thinking, this paper demonstrates that these five classes offer a comprehensive, system-wide perspective including risk factors beyond technological considerations. Topics emerging from new risks related to the impact of working with collaborative robots, such as psychosocial, ethical, and cyber risk factors will need to be taken into account in the risk factors that are important to identify, assess and mitigate before working with collaborative robots. Operator involvement and participation, especially throughout the risk assessment and mitigation cycle are recommended as new areas of attention in human-robot collaboration. Going forward, one challenge will be the agility and adaptability of legislation to at least keep track of risk factors emerging from continuously changing technologies and to translate them into practically applicable tools for enterprises and design engineers implementing collaborative applications. Another key challenge will be the measurement of the new emerging and sometimes less technological risks.
Performing root cause analysis in technical systems is usually challenging owing to the complex f... more Performing root cause analysis in technical systems is usually challenging owing to the complex failure associations which often exist between inter-connected system components. The recent adoption of maintenance management systems in industry has enhanced the collection of maintenance data which could assist practitioners derive meaningful failure associations embedded in the data. However, root cause analysis in the maintenance domain is dominated by the use of qualitative and semi-quantitative approaches. Such approaches, however, rely on expert elicitations whereof this elicitation process often introduces bias in the root cause analysis process. On the other hand, quantitative techniques for root cause analysis , for instance, fault trees and Bayesian networks are often limited to analyzing root causes in fairly simple systems . Moreover, the quantitative techniques seldom model the failure dependencies linked to the empirical failure events. Hence, to address these challenges, a novel data exploration methodology for root cause analysis is proposed which consists of four steps: 1) data collection and standardization step; 2) data exploration framework incorporating multivariate and cluster analysis; 3) causal mapping; and 4) maintenance strategy selection. The methodology is demonstrated in the application case of thermal power maintenance data. Moreover, the methodology is compared with two conventional qualitative root cause analysis techniques -Ishikawa cause-and-effect diagram, and the '5-whys' analysis. A detailed discussion is presented whereof the added value of the methodology for maintenance decision support is demonstrated.
Cotemporary efforts for improving healthcare safety are almost exclusively dependent on the study... more Cotemporary efforts for improving healthcare safety are almost exclusively dependent on the study of adverse events as their primary information source. Investigations of adverse events have had an important role and contribution to the recognition of the magnitude of the healthcare problem, but are of a limited scientific value. Error investigations are the wisdom of hindsight, based on partial and biased sample, lacking base rate reference and distorted by reporter's memory and interests. This paper describes an alternative approach based on self reports of medical staff, on daily reoccurring hazards and performance difficulties, representing human factors and safety aspects. Reports are evaluated by a human factors team, and corrective steps are proposed, and backed by management. We describe the logic and elements of the new approach, and bring results from four wards belonging to two hospitals. These results are compared with data obtained in 5 years, using conventional incident reporting systems.
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2012
Objective: The aim was to develop a reporting system for collecting human factors problem reports... more Objective: The aim was to develop a reporting system for collecting human factors problem reports to establish a database to guide activities for improving health care quality and patient safety. Background: The current error and incident report systems do not provide sufficient and adequate coverage of the factors contributing to impaired safety and care quality. They fail to examine the range of difficulties that clinical staff encounters in the conduct of daily work. Method: A voluntary problem-reporting system was developed to be used by hospital wards’ clinicians and was tested in four wards of two hospitals in Israel. The system is based on human factors–formatted problem reports submitted by physicians and nurses on difficulties and hazards they confront in their daily work. Reports are grouped and evaluated by a team of human factor professionals. Results: A total of 359 reports were collected in the wards during 12 weeks, as compared with a total of 200 incidents reports th...
Most studies concerned with participative ergonomic (PE) interventions, focus on organizational r... more Most studies concerned with participative ergonomic (PE) interventions, focus on organizational rather than group level analysis. By implementing an intervention at a manufacturing plant, the current study, utilizing advanced information systems, measured the effect of line-supervisor leadership on employee exposure to risks. The study evaluated which PE dimensions (i.e., extent of workforce involvement, diversity of reporter role types and scope of analysis) are related to such exposure at the group level. The data for the study was extracted from two separate computerized systems (workforce medical records of 791 employees and an intranet reporting system) during a two-year period. While the results did not confirm the effect of line-supervisor leadership on subordinates' exposure to risks, they did demonstrate relationships between PE dimensions and the employees' exposure to risks. The results support the suggested level of analysis and demonstrate that group-based analysis facilitates the assimilation of preventive interventions. When seeking to determine the best interventional approach, one question is whether to focus on the organizational level, expressing policy-making aspects, or at the group level, expressing supervisory practices. This question is relevant, since, in addition to cross-level
a b s t r a c t "Management by walking around" (MBWA) is a practice that has aroused much interes... more a b s t r a c t "Management by walking around" (MBWA) is a practice that has aroused much interest in management science and practice. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate adaptation of this practice to safety management. We describe a three-year long case study that collected empirical data in which a modified MBWA was practiced in order to improve safety in a semiconductor fabrication facility. The main modification involved integrating an information system with the MBWA in order to create a practice that would generate safety leadership development and an organizational safety learning mechanism, while promoting employee safety participation. The results of the case study demonstrate that the SMBWA practice facilitated thousands of tours in which safety leadership behaviors were practiced by managers and by employees (employees performed five times as many tours as managers). The information system collected information about safety behaviors and safety conditions that could not otherwise be obtained. Thus, this study presents a new organizational safety practice SMBWA, and demonstrates the ways in which SMBWA may improve safety in organizations.
Journal of health services research & policy, Oct 19, 2016
Wayfinding in hospitals is a complex problem since patients, who are likely to be under stress, m... more Wayfinding in hospitals is a complex problem since patients, who are likely to be under stress, may have to navigate their way to multiple locations in the course of a single visit. While good wayfinding design can reduce stress, poor wayfinding can not only increase individuals' anxiety but also generate additional costs for the hospital due to: lost time among staff members who need to direct patients rather than concentrate on their designated task; missed appointments or delayed meetings; and additional security staff to ensure that patients do not enter restricted areas. We investigated to what extent a questionnaire, developed by collecting data about the subjective experiences of wayfinders with diverse needs and abilities, could uncover wayfinding problems in hospitals. The methodology we developed involved four steps: creating an initial questionnaire based on the literature; customizing the questionnaire to a hospital environment; validating and verifying the questionn...
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Papers by Ido Morag