Development of a Research Agenda at the Intersection of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Health Care: Implications for Human Factors and Ergonomics

Abstract

In September, 2009, AHRQ and NSF convened a workshop in which experts in the fields of industrial and systems engineering (ISyE) and health care explored critical areas of research at the intersection of both fields. The objectives were to 1) articulate a vision for an ideal health care delivery system, 2) determine why current efforts to apply ISyE knowledge to health care have not resulted in meaningful change, and 3) propose a research and action agenda that should be pursued to enable the field of ISyE to substantially contribute to the realization of an ideal health care delivery system. This paper presents the vision of the ideal health care delivery system and elements of the research agenda that are salient to the field of human factors and ergonomics (HFE). The ideal health care delivery system was defined as one that is new, patient-centered, and engineered. The research agenda emphasized knowledge innovation related to systems monitoring, modeling, and modification, but also included items related to transfer of existing ISyE knowledge and integration and prioritization of knowledge in both fields. Recognizing that human factors and ergonomics is much larger than ISyE, this paper is also presented to the HFES community to identify which other perspectives may need to be included.