KMDI Speaker Series – From Features to Patient Safety: Opportunities for Human Factors

Guest Speaker: Yan Xiao, Director for Human Factors and Patient Safety Science

Baylor Scott & White Heath, Dallas, Texas
Adjunct Professor, University of Texas at Arlington

Abstract

Technological advances rarely march into healthcare in coordinated manners. Many well-intended technological advances failed to deliver safety dividends with a common cause of underestimating the complexity of creating safety with the safety features of these advances. With medical errors identified as the third leading cause of death in the US, what are the opportunities for human factors expertise to maximize the safety benefits of technological advances? From barcoding medication administration to “smart” infusion pumps to continuous clinical monitors to electronic health record systems, healthcare is investing heavily into technology while human-system integration is frequently a reactive effort. Based on seven years of experience in operational improvement and patient safety research from within the largest, not-for-profit healthcare delivery system in Texas, Yan Xiao from Baylor Scott & White Health shares his thoughts on what it takes to translate features into safety gains, and hopes to encourage and challenge creative minds to contribute to patient safety in sustained and significant ways.

About our guest speaker

Yan Xiao graduated from University of Toronto’s Human Factors Doctoral Programs (1994) and subsequently joined University of Maryland School of Medicine. He left the medical school as a tenured full professor of anesthesiology (2009) and joined Baylor Scott & White Health to develop human factors programs within healthcare delivery organizations to improve safety and quality. He is building a comprehensive set of case studies on human factors for frontline health care professionals based on improvement projects. These projects include those on infusion medication, clinical alarms, electronic health record, analysis of critical incidents, facility design and renovation, and nursing workload reduction.

Yan Xiao’s research is reported in 74 peer reviewed articles on human factors (including planning in complex systems, technology enhanced coordination, and team leadership) and patient safety (including video-assisted performance measures, clinical alarms, telemedicine). He serves on grants review panels for the US government and patient safety funding organizations, and on the editorial boards of the journal of Human Factors and Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making. He is the principal investigator in a project on medication safety after hospitalization sponsored by US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Yan Xiao and his wife have two grown children (both born in Toronto) and enjoy living in Plano, Texas. He is currently working on the private pilot license on weekends.