Human factors
Patient Safety
Definition. Human factors (ergonomics) is the scientific discipline that studies interactions between people and other elements of a system in order to optimise wellbeing and system performance.
Explanation
In health care, human factors explains how design of equipment, software, tasks and environments shapes error. Recent reviews of health informatics emphasise usability, workflow fit and organisational issues as determinants of success (Kushniruk & Kaufman, 2024).
The rise of AI adds new questions: clinicians vary widely in how much they trust and rely on explainable AI, which affects performance (Nicolson et al., 2025). Human factors methods include task analysis, usability testing and systems models such as SEIPS.
Related concepts
Medical error Swiss cheese model Alarm fatigue Resilience engineering Clinical decision support system
Read on The Health Topics
- Human Factors in Health Informatics: Recent Advances
- Beyond the Algorithm: Human Factors in Explainable AI and the Future of Clinical Trust
References
Kushniruk, A., & Kaufman, D. (2024). Human Factors and Organizational Issues in Health Informatics: Review of Recent Developments and Advances. Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 33 (01), 196-209.
Nicolson, A., Bradburn, E., Gal, Y., Papageorghiou, A. T., & Noble, J. A. (2025). The human factor in explainable artificial intelligence: Clinician variability in trust, reliance, and performance. npj Digital Medicine, 8(658). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-02023-0
Cite this entry: Kurutkan, M. N. (2026). Human factors. In The Health Topics glossary. https://healthtopic.org/glossary/human-factors/
Articles that discuss this concept
18 articles on The Health Topics mention this concept. Most relevant first.
- Human Factors in Health Informatics: Recent Advances 12
- Global Patient Safety and High-Reliability Healthcare 9
- Understanding Safety Science: Key Theories & Frameworks 5
- The Hand off Literature and Its Future Research Agenda 3
- One Method, Many Names: The Problem of Terminological Fragmentation in the Patient Journey Mapping Literature 3
- Healthcare Worker Safety: A Participatory Ergonomics Review 2
- Visual Representation of Sociotechnical System Paradigms: A Critical Evaluation of the Scoping Review by Bogna et al. (2026) 2
- Exploring Digital Innovation in Business Journals 1
- SEIPS 3.0: Human-Centered Patient Journey for Safety 1
- Fostering Health Worker Safety and Patient Care 1
- The Swiss Cheese Model in Risk Management 1
- Systems-Based Risk Identification for Patient Safety 1