Ergonomic performance measurement and evaluation for worksystems in healthcare

Abstract

The principles of ergonomics can be applied to the study and design for the components of any worksystem involving human(s) and machine(s) embedded in environment. As a first step towards exploring the enormous potential and concept of ergonomics at workplaces, many organizations, including healthcare systems, are required to take steps to institutionalize the process of implementing a framework to determine the level of ergonomic performance at their different workplaces. Relevance ergonomics-related factors of performance should be identified and assessed on a regular basis to improve the performance, productivity and reliability of any unit of analysis, and application of the concept of ‘remedial’ ergonomics in many areas, operations and factors of production or service may lead to substantial improvement in overall system performance. This paper highlights the details of an ergonomic performance measurement system developed for a hospital system in India.