Learning about Healthcare: Preparing Human Factors Professionals for a Career in Healthcare

Formally trained human factors professionals are in increasing demand from medical device companies, health care systems, and electronic health record (EHR) vendors to ensure successful device design, EHR deployment, and overall usability and quality improvement initiatives. Most members of this panel have extensive experience working in the healthcare domain, while one is starting a career in healthcare. The panelists will exchange their views on the challenges and rewards of learning about healthcare in order to be effective in making contributions to health care. Specific initiatives human factors professionals can take to learn about healthcare will be introduced and discussed. Human factors professionals and students should expect steep a learning curve, as well as strong support from clinicians and other health care workers, which will be discussed.