title: Evaluating New Skill Sets for Performance Improvement: Human Factors as a Case Study.
abstract: New skill sets and improvement disciplines are constantly arising across the vast industrial and academic landscape of modern economies. Prescient hospital administrators are routinely searching for new and innovative ways to improve care, care delivery, safety, quality, and access. But, it can be challenging to identify those emerging skill sets, which will likely have lasting effect and will provide strong return on investment, from passing fads with little capacity to move performance benchmarks for a hospital. Here, we present a rubric for investigating new skill sets, using The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's investigation into human factors engineering as a case study, and determining whether they can support hospital operations and improvements while providing sufficient return to justify the expense and challenge of incorporating ideas and methods into a quality and performance improvement environment.
authors.affiliation: Author Affiliations: Office of Safety and Medical Operations, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Dr Day, Ms Lederman, Ms McKetta, and Ms Spraycar); and Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Roanoke, Virginia (Dr Henrickson Parker).
authors.forename: T Eugene
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Day
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Henrickson Parker
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lederman
authors.forename: Debbie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: McKetta
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spraycar
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D006804:Ergonomics; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans