Human Factors Engineering Contributions to Infection Prevention and Control

Drews, Frank A.; Visnovsky, Lindsay C.; Mayer, Jeanmarie

OBJECTIVE: This article provides a review of areas that present significant challenges in infection prevention and control and describes human factors engineering (HFE) approaches that have been applied successfully to these areas. In addition, implications and recommendations for HFE use in future research are discussed. BACKGROUND: Infection prevention and control aims to prevent patients and health care personnel from acquiring preventable infections in healthcare. Effective infection control practices of healthcare-associated infections have recently become even more critical with the emergence of life-threatening infections. HFE could benefit infection prevention and control in addressing older and more recent challenges, but uptake has been limited. METHOD/RESULTS: This literature review is an integration and synthesis of recently published research that describes HFE-based approaches in infection prevention and control to address the challenges for three specific topics. The results of the review suggests that HFE is in a position to support work in infection prevention and control and improve overall healthcare safety. CONCLUSION: HFE provides conceptual frameworks and methods that have significant potential to improve infection prevention and control. APPLICATION: The work reviewed can provide potential solutions for current infection prevention and control challenges by applying HFE based recommendations.