PPRNE update
08 December 2022
Update from the Professional Practice Research Network Executive.
The Professional Practice Research Network Executive (PPRNE) is a subcommittee of the ANZCA Research Committee. Its purpose is to promote and foster excellent research in the ANZCA professional practice domains of communicator, collaborator, leader and manager, scholar, health advocate and professional in anaesthesia, perioperative and pain medicine.
The PPRNE is more aligned with the social sciences and qualitative research, for example:
- Exploring the factors influencing practitioner well-being.
- Investigating the threats and countermeasures to equity in healthcare and in training
- Examining cognitive processes in clinical reasoning and decision making
- Studying the development of expertise; understanding and modifying the socio-cultural influences on communication both with patients and with colleagues.
- Understanding teamwork, leadership and culture in the perioperative environment.
- Researching human factors, ergonomics and systems design.
The implementation and uptake of digital health solutions in healthcare is rapidly increasing with evidence growing that digital health systems and tools can improve safety and efficiency of healthcare, as well as support patient wellness and disease self-management and prevention. Despite these benefits, there are also many cases where digital health solutions do not achieve expected benefits, are not used, are abandoned or worked around. Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) provides us with an excellent toolkit of methods and approaches to design and implement digital health solutions, and to evaluate solutions, in order to improve the ‘fit’ between the technology and end-users.
The Journal of Human Factors and Healthcare has a special edition title: The application of HFE to the design, implementation and evaluation of digital health solutions.
Dr Thy Do, FANZCA and member of the PPRNE is a guest editor. The aim of this special issue is to provide researchers and practitioners with an opportunity to share their applications of HFE in digital health. This issue will showcase both research and applied papers that describe an application of HFE to the design, implementation or evaluation of digital health solutions. Submissions from both researchers and practitioners are encouraged. Articles to be included in the special issue can focus on any digital health solution, including (but not limited to) patient-facing tools, clinician-facing tools, and collaboration solutions, or on new methods, design techniques or implementation strategies for digital health. Call for papers is now open.