Medical error, which leads to patient discomfort, extended hospital stays, and sometimes death is often caused by problems in the design of the medical system and/or procedure.  These design errors may lead to an incorrect action by medical personnel actively involved in patient treatment. For example a display may be overcrowded or too small. There may be too many like-sounding alarms of varying importance going off at once, so that the most important ones are missed. It may be very easy to set some equipment to administer medicine too quickly or too slowly. It may be possible to connect different types of tubing together which should not be connected to each other.  All of these errors should be prevented by better design. This prevention requires knowledge of human capabilities and limitations by the people designing and producing the medical equipment and procedures.

The technical or medical writer on a product, process or solution development team, who knows about human capabilities and limitations can predict the errors which are likely to happen in the course of their job. The writer has less ego-involvement in the product design than the engineers. With some training they might also have more knowledge about human capability and limitation. Thus, they have the potential to become a critical team member who detects potential medical errors while reviewing designs and prototypes of products and procedures and suggests alternative designs that will ultimately save patient lives. Additionally, by making the equipment safer they may prevent costly recalls and law suits.

In this session we will perform a series of activities involving attending to details, communicating, conforming, responding, and transferring learning from one environment to another. These activities show what people can do very well and where they are prone to sub-optimal performance. We will discuss some potential implications of these human strengths and weaknesses for the design of medical equipment and procedures so that the technical writer will become more equipped to help make their products safer, faster, and easier to use. In addition, the activities will illustrate some principles which may help to improve the design of documentation. 

This session is a great way to conclude your formal conference participation because it is informative, interactive, fun, and a great initial step towards learning about preventing medical error and saving lives. You might even win a prize and learn a few parenting skills, too!!!