What are Human Factors?

The study of Human Factors is an established discipline that utilises scientific knowledge about the human body, mind and behaviour to better understand our fundamental capabilities and limitations, to ultimately create the best possible fit between people and the environment in which they work.

This ‘introduction to Human Factors in veterinary practice’ session will help you and your veterinary teams to understand the components of consistently high-performing individuals, teams and organisations. You will explore the positive impact of our performance approach, in which veterinary professionals maximise their own wellbeing and fully utilise their clinical or technical skills to deliver optimal patient care. It is important to understand the significance of Human Factors in veterinary practice and how nontechnical skills can reduce error and thus improve veterinary patient safety.

In veterinary practice our clinical skills and clinical knowledge are paramount to doing a good job, having good patient outcomes and maintaining high levels of patient safety. But this is not the whole picture. In line with research in other safety- critical professions, it has been demonstrated that in veterinary practice, 70–80% of errors are not due to a lack of technical knowledge or skill [1].

In order to perform at our best in clinical veterinary practice we must explore the other components that lead to high performance. The discipline of Human Factors (long established in industries such as aviation, nuclear power, oil and human healthcare) explores these components; the topics and skills which exist in that gap between simply possessing clinical skills, and most successfully delivering these to achieve best patient outcomes.

Veterinary professionals are highly skilled individuals (and teams) with good intentions. Most people come to work to do a good job for our patients, but it is often the less understood areas of ‘being human’ that actually limit our performance at work. It is critical to understand our human strengths and limitations, so that we can do our best for our patients.

As scientists, exploring this evidence-based scientific discipline of Human Factors is gratifying and enlightening. It allows us to understand how we function as humans, and enables us to set ourselves up to perform at our best. This benefits ourselves and our enjoyment at work, our team as we work best together, and of course our patients as we are able to deliver our clinical skills most effectively.

Human Factors looks at the cognitive strengths and limitations which impact our performance – considering areas such as cognitive bias, decision making, situational awareness, impact of hierarchy and civility, psychological safety and much more. We consider specific tools that can be used to support us in our cognitive limitations (not limited by virtue of being unskilled, simply by functioning with a human brain in a complex environment).

We consider the impact of our mental and physiological wellbeing and how tending to our own needs is often not first on the list, but can indeed impact the safety of the patients under our care, so needs to be prioritised when safe to do so.

It is essential in practice to understand the concept of systems and processes and know how, when working in the complex environment of veterinary practice, we can use these to our advantage to support us, making it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing. We demonstrate the importance and impact of tools such as checklists, briefings and safety reporting systems and how using these appropriately and with the right training will improve the safety of patients under our care.

All these areas (nontechnical skills and knowledge, wellbeing and systems and processes) are intimately interwoven and it is impossible to talk about one without its impact on the next. Each of these areas is impacted on by the culture in the workplace in which these skills are being used. As such, it is essential to understand and appreciate each team member’s role within the workplace culture as part of a high-performing team. When considering the broad impact of each area of Human Factors, we see the impact that it can have on clinical outcomes, team motivation and operational efficiency.

Understanding the basics of the vast field of Human Factors allows individuals and teams to take the first steps in developing knowledge around key skills, which can then be used in practice to start to implement Human Factors principles.

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