Please join us in welcoming Abby Wooldridge, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Quantifying qualitative data to model interactions in sociotechnical systems: Human factors engineering to improve pediatric care transitions
Health care sociotechnical systems are complex and adaptive, as their outcomes depend on interactions between and within system components; understanding these interactions is crucial to improving outcomes such as patient safety, health equity and outcomes of health care professionals. My human factors research addresses the challenge of how these interactions emerge dynamically over time. I empirically and systematically explore these interactions with the goal to improve system performance, e.g., patient safety in care transitions. In this presentation, I will briefly introduce sociotechnical system design from the human factors perspective, using the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) model as a framework. The goal of this research is to improve communication between clinicians who exchange information, authority and responsibility during handoffs of pediatric patients from operating rooms (ORs) to pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) to avoid lost, incomplete or incorrect information, which ultimately can contribute to patient harm. This project showcases my use of clinical simulation and Epistemic Network Analysis to enhance my efforts to model system interactions in the complex sociotechnical systems involved in the care of vulnerable patients, such as children. My research develops innovative approaches to sociotechnical systems modeling, filling gaps in the foundational knowledge and methodologies of human factors and ergonomics to support teams in health care delivery and address pervasive and persistent problems of health inequity and patient safety.
Abigail R. Wooldridge is an Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow in the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, where she directs the Human Factors in Sociotechnical Systems Laboratory. Her research focuses on engineering sociotechnical systems to support teams and improve equity and justice, particularly in health care and health-related settings. She has courtesy appointments in Computer Science, Kinesiology and Community Health, School of Information Sciences, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, Coordinated Science Laboratory and Biomedical and Translational Sciences at Carle Illinois College of Medicine. Dr. Wooldridge received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on Human Factors and Ergonomics; she also has worked in industry, with experience in process improvement consulting, decision support and surgical scheduling. Her work appears in Ergonomics, Applied Ergonomics, Cognition, Technology and Work, Applied Clinical Informatics, Internal and Emergency Medicine, Health Affairs, PLOS One and more. Her edited volume, Advancing Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice Through Human Systems Engineering, received the Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2020 Award. She recently was awarded the Presidential Medallion from University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen and the inaugural Robert L. Wears Early Career Award by the Health Care Technical Group of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
