News and Insights

By: Rory Klingensmith My Journey to a Medical Human Factors Career Level 1: The Choice In college, we are challenged with the daunting prospect of funneling ourselves into one category that may serve as the biggest part of our identity for the next 40 years – choosing a major. My mom studied nursing and my dad studied civil engineering, but I did not want to work in healthcare or design bridges and buildings. I liked science, math, and solving puzzles (my favorite video game growing up was Portal 2), so I thought, “why not do it all – healthcare and engineering?” This reasoning led me to select biomedical engineering as my major. It was the perfect combination of learning how to help heal people and build things, without having to go to medical school or wear a hard hat.  Level 2: The Inspiration During my studies, I discovered there were prosthetics that could be controlled by the brain’s electrical signals, artificial organs grown from a few cells, catheters that could complete an ao

By: Ryan Bird Brain-computer Interfaces Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are devices which allow users to communicate with computers via the electrical signals generated by neuronal firing (i.e., brain cell activity). For example, prosthetic limbs can be connected to the brain’s motor cortex (see Figure 1 below) with implantable electrodes, permitting the user to control the prosthesis just as they would any other limb. Although BCIs have been developed and tested in various forms in both human and non-human models for decades (i.e., cochlear implants), recent advances in artificial intelligence and surgical technology are paving the way for incredible medical breakthroughs once thought to be the stuff of science fiction. Figure 1: Motor Cortex Monumental Progress On December 22, 2021, Philip O’Keefe took over the Twitter account of Synchron ¹ CEO Thomas Oxley and posted a very short tweet. “Hello, world! Short tweet. Monumental progress.” It doesn’t appear to be much at first glance,

  By: Jack Sharples The increasing sophistication of AI tools like ChatGPT represents a major development in the usefulness of information on the internet. As experts in human factors consulting, our business runs on using our experience and acumen to guide our clients through the human factors process. We decided to see if ChatGPT “thinks” that their service could replace the real people here at Core Human Factors. It seems that ChatGPT does a great job at explaining why skilled humans haven’t been replaced quite yet, at least in human factors consulting! Check out the questions and responses below, and then go ahead and send us an email to get the conversation started. Can I rely on ChatGPT for medical human factors consulting? As an AI language model, I am not a medical human factors consultant, nor am I a substitute for one. While I can provide general guidance on human factors principles and best practices, I cannot provide specific advice on the design or testing of medical devi

By: Latanya S. H. King, PsyD A quick internet search will yield a definition of psychology as the scientific study of mind and behavior. But unfortunately, many people also assume they know exactly what psychology is, and never look beyond the quick and surface level definition. There are so many aspects of psychology that impact every career field, but often the average person only thinks about therapy. Through this same lens, many college freshmen pursue an undergraduate degree in psychology with the goal of becoming a practicing psychologist that provides various types of clinical treatment. My journey was no different. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology, a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, and completing post-doctoral requirements, I had accomplished my goal and was working as a Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Psychology. I LOVE clinical psychology. My passion for studying people, their thinking, and their behaviors

By Jack Sharples This month, I marked my six month anniversary as a researcher at Core   Human Factors. I started at Core after finishing a Masters in Behavioral and Decision Sciences last summer and have been reflecting on the overlap between my graduate school experience and the work that we do at Core. A large component of my education and training was seeking to explain what drives human judgement, decision-making, and behavior. I continue this work at Core when exploring the root causes of use errors.   Intentions are an important component of understanding why people make certain decisions. Decision-making expert Jonathan Baron describes rational behavior as behavior that aligns with individual goals [1] . For example, if someone decides to jump out of a plane, they are behaving rationally if they acted in pursuit of a thrilling experience. For others (including me!), deciding to skydive would be highly irrational because we generally aim to avoid unnecessary risks and don’t seek

  Core's Rebecca Moses and Kimberley Alexander will be leading a workshop about human factors at the injectable drug delivery conference in London this May. Becky and Kim are looking forward to sharing their insight and experience with applying human factors to the development of injectable combination products, as well as discussing topics such as training and memory decay, risk analyses, and instructions for use with workshop attendees. Learn more at www.injectable-drug-delivery.com.

  Nicole Stephenson: Well hello Bert, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today.   Bert the Manikin: No problem! Happy to chat. NS: First, can you tell me the difference between a manikin and a mannequin?   BM: Of course! Mannequins are mainly used as models for clothing in stores. A glamorous life! I’m a manikin — we are used in healthcare and research settings for educational purposes.   NS: I see. Two important but very different jobs. How do you help with healthcare training and education? BM: Well, people can use me and others like me in all kinds of ways: to learn CPR, to practice surgery, to learn anatomy, and more. I personally help with human factors testing at Core Human Factors. NS: What kinds of things do you do there? BM: I help with all kinds of products. Nurses, caregivers, and even laypeople use me to pretend they’re interacting with an actual person while testing out a new medical device. I get poked and prodded quite a bit, but I don’t mind. It’s worth