Training by iPod

Found these two articles describing how a hospital is using iPods to give new staff induction training.
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/hi/news/5050526.html

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=43FAF411-87A7-4528-BA2E-3DC06A277D19

I find the idea that an iPod is better for training than an interactive, one-to-one session is quite fascinating. People assume new technology will give benefits.

I wonder how they are going to demonstrate the "expected benefits to patients include improved safety and less exposure to clinical risk."

It is also a great example of where we measure achievement by saying people have received training, not whether they have learnt anything.

Silly signs

Found this Blog that shows silly signs. Good human factors stuff.
http://sillysigns.blogspot.com/

Mis-identification of chemicals

I picked up an interesting leaflet at the Hazards conference. It covers the problems of people using the wrong materials from drums and sacks. It points out that this can be because they labeled incorrectly, but usually because the person does not identify the correct drum or sack. There are many reasons for this, but poor labeling, easily confused materials names and badly organised storage are significant contributors.
The leaflet includes descriptions of 11 incidents and then goes on to discuss possible solutions. It should be really useful when dealing with situations where errors in selecting materials are possible providing a benchmark against which to judge the companies risk controls.

Conference - Hazards XIX

Attended the Hazards XIX conference in Manchester yesterday. This is always a good conference, organised by the Institution of Chemical Engineers, focused on safety in the process industry.
It is interesting that a few years ago human factors was one of the specialist topics in the parallel sessions but now it is an integral part of many of the main stream presentations.
I presented a paper regarding managing change. It might have been a bit ambitious, but I know some people appreciated it. I tried to make two points. First, most companies have systems to deal with hardware change, and virtually nothing for people and organisation changes. Second, most of the existing systems are purely change control rather than change management.