Conference and Journal Updates | #HFESHCS 2023 | Bonus Episode

[00:00:00] Elyse Hallett: Hello everyone. This is Elise Halle at the H F E S Healthcare Symposium and I'm sitting here with the two co-chairs of the conference. So I'm sitting here with Dr. Tara Cohen, who is an associate professor, um, with Cedar Sinai Medical Center and, uh, Dr. Joe Keebler, who is also an associate professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical Univers.

Welcome you to. Hey Elise. It's so great to have you on the podcast. Um, I know both of you have been on this before and you know, we were able to chat about your roles at that time. I feel like it was 2019, like, so Yeah. A, a few years ago, I think it was just before Covid broke out. So pandemic. That's right.

But times have changed and now you both are co-chairs. Um, congratulations for. But I thought, you know, before diving into bits about the conference, um, for the listeners of the podcast who, you know, maybe haven't had an opportunity to check that out. Um, that previous, uh, episode out, if you wouldn't mind just speaking a little bit about where you're at now in terms of your role and maybe just a little synopsis of how you got there and I guess we can start with Joe.

[00:01:13] Joe Keebler: Sure. So I've been kind of helping out with the conference or the past seven or eight years. Um, actually got involved originally through the main each FBS healthcare tg, where I, the program shared it, which helped develop content and I think that. Based on my performance there, I got kind of eyed to help out with this.

And so I started off as a director and then eventually it evolved into the chair position once Tony stepped down. Um, and so that's kind of how I got involved. I mean, I keep active in healthcare research. I've always been volunteering for HIVs since I was a graduate student. I was president of our society.

So I feel like that volunteer aspect of my, you know, the service part of my work is something I've always kind of kept on since I've been a graduate student.

[00:01:55] Tara Cohen: And, um, I have known Joe for a while now. Um, I was a student at every ru old back when, well, Joe's still there, um, teaching, and so we started.

Having a collaborative relationship pretty much as soon as I left and went to Cedars and wanted to integrate team science into the work that we were doing at Cedar Sinai. So we've been connected for a while, and in 2019 I was asked to be a track chair for the healthcare symposium. So I guess I did a good enough job, um, that Tony and Joe invited me to help, um, co-chair this year.

So this is my first year co-chairing, and it's been a lot of. That's

[00:02:28] Elyse Hallett: fantastic. And as I understand it, you're not, you know, co-chairing is not your only role. Like you both are also, you know, associate professors on top of it and conducting your own research. Um, and I understand, Tara, that you actually have a talk that you're giving at the conference.

Would you mind touching on that?

[00:02:47] Tara Cohen: Yeah, sure. So, um, today I was actually on a panel about, Work as done, essentially doing research, what surgeons in the operating room doing surgical ergonomics research. So that was a really fun. With myself, Dr. Susan Lbeck, Dr. Kristen Kreuser, Geeta Law, uh, Dr. Kreuser and Dr.

Law are both surgeons, so it was nice to have them. Um, Hamit, Narai and then Emmanuel Tek. Um, so it was a really fun panel this morning. And then tomorrow I'm actually presenting on a really fun project where we've developed a robotic assistant surgery Olympics. Um, help teams do engaging motivational team training, um, to promote their technical and non-technical skills in robotic surgery.

Um, but in a way that's a little bit more fun than your traditional didactic team training lectures. So, um, that's been exciting to do. Yeah.

[00:03:37] Elyse Hallett: So you say robotic Olympics, what, what has that entail? Sure.

[00:03:41] Tara Cohen: So, um, we, you know, were in the heat of the pandemic when we were doing a grant funded study where it involved needing to, um, implement interventions to improve teamwork and, um, communication and coordination in robotic assisted surgery.

And so we came up with this gamified training, which we're calling the Robotic Assisted Surgery Olympics, where teams. Circulating nurses and scrub techs actually had to come together and form teams and then compete in different tasks that would promote teamwork and different technical skills, um, to win prizes and in, in a very Olympic style manner.

There were different events and they got to learn those events and hopefully learn throughout their, um, participation and have a good time while actually learning, um, skills that were relevant for probiotic surgery.

[00:04:31] Elyse Hallett: That's fantastic. So I have to ask how competitive. The

[00:04:36] Tara Cohen: get oh, beyond, beyond competitive.

I mean, we gave them team names. They were like kind of shouting at each other in the hallways, behind the scenes. They were very, very competitive and we assigned them their teams, so they did not get to pick, um, which I think was good for the science, but, uh, made it a little bit more challenging, not being with your friends and, um, really helped them learn how to communicate.

But it, it got, it got juicy.

[00:05:02] Elyse Hallett: I can imagine, um, I love hearing about the, the team research. I come from the consulting world, so a lot of times, you know, we, uh, you know, are there supporting one device and you know, wanna think about the different. Um, you know, efforts at play when you bring in multiple players that are involved.

But, you know, that's only fueled by, you know, the research on the other side. And, um, you know, so it's, I I love conferences like this and being able to learn about, you know, those types of things and, and the work that people are doing in that realm. Um, but I know the research side isn't the only thing that you two are working on.

So, jumping, you know, back into a conference in your role as co-chairs, You know, for those who are unfortunate enough to not be able to attend this wonderful conference, like, what do you say sets this conference apart from, you know, some of the other conferences either in, you know, the general healthcare realm or the human

[00:06:01] Tony Andre: factor, Harris, bam.

[00:06:02] Joe Keebler: Sure. I can think of speak to that. So I think, um, the first is our size. We're relatively small even though we've grown. So since Chicago we're about 10% larger. Chicago was. Large face-to-face bank cuz New Orleans we're still kind of in the shadow of Covid and we just have the attendance of previous conferences.

So we were like on this UpSpring till 2019 and then we went virtual, which which almost doubled our numbers cuz of the virtual component. Then we went back to face-to-face. Obviously this is face to base and so we're kind of back to where we started 2019, like we finally caught backup, so it's about 600 people, which is a small conference and so it's really.

To meet people and interact with them over and over again. We have one giant lunch together. All the poster sessions is everyone together versus other conferences. It's full of so many people. It's hard to kind of, maybe find someone again. It's just there's so many sessions. Right now we have five parallel sessions, so you can easily go to multiple talks in sessions and not be lost in a sea of people.

Um, so that would be the first one. The second, uh, aspect that makes us different is that we're pretty much 50. Human factors, practitioners and medical providers, admin, et cetera. So half the audience is folks trying to learn more about HF and how to apply it within their hospital or medical system. And the other half is the practitioners of hf.

Doing the work and, and bring that expertise. So that marriage

[00:07:18] Tony Andre: of the two fields together, that's really unique.

[00:07:21] Joe Keebler: Oftentimes just like kind of dominated H F E S and I'm not in any way saying anything negative about it, but it's mostly HF people. There's very few medical doctors and nurses in the audience.

If you go to a medical conference, there's very, very few HF d So we are kind of really cross fertilizing here between two fields. So, and a lot of the work is hyper replies. So my third point is almost everything's like where the rubber hits the road. It's very. Abstract work and much more like, this is working in my hospital, or this is how we're using the system to be better and safer.

And so everyone's presentations for the most part are like proof in the pudding pits that's being done in an actual real world setting versus uh, uh, you know, and as an experimental psychologist, I'm not trying to say anything negative, but first being done a laboratory. So

[00:08:00] Tara Cohen: I'd like to comment on that as well.

I think one of the things that's so beautiful about this conference, as Joe was saying, is you have so many different professions coming to this conference. Like I've already talked about three different collaborative projects with different folks from different industries and different backgrounds and different institutions, and I think in provides so much opportunity for networking and connecting and building those relationships.

Other conferences that exist, but I don't think you have the level of access to different folks with different skill sets and, and backgrounds that you do here. So it's a lot of fun to learn from other people, but also have the opportunity to work with them and connect with them.

[00:08:38] Elyse Hallett: Yeah, absolutely. I can definitely attest to both of those points is the attendee of the conference.

Um, any plugs you wanna make for the conference next year? Well,

[00:08:48] Tony Andre: we're gonna

[00:08:48] Joe Keebler: be in Chicago and Chicago's one of. Most common destinations. I think we've been there more than any other city. Yeah. This will be our third or fourth time there. Uh, I'm just excited to go back to Chicago. It was been almost, it'll be been five years since we had it there.

And I think that that's a good place because it's in the middle of the country and so it's really easy for almost everyone to get to from both coasts. So I think it'll be exciting. Um, We're not expanding anymore. I think we have five tracks. We keep it that way. Regards to the, the five kind of content tracks we have, hopefully we'll grow in numbers a little bit, but again, we don't wanna get too big.

You know, I think Tony and I have talked about this quite a bit over the last six years and you know, under a thousands, a good number. And so yeah, the conference probably grow much larger than that, but there'll be like, I'll my number one. We're small and intimate. You can meet people and meet lots of people, and that gets lost when it's larger.

So I would hope to see the conference has stay at this stable size and just keep going, but if it stays good, it's gonna grow because people are gonna wanna come. So, I don't know, they will have a growth anyway, fair to say. Um,

[00:09:47] Tara Cohen: last plug I'll make is, um, to consider publishing in the human bathrooms. Um, in Healthcare Journal.

Um, it's new, it's exciting. There's a lot of, you know, the nice thing about that journal is that it's, um, research and applied sciences. So, um, it doesn't have to be strictly academic. Um, you know, rigorous studies. Not that they're all not progress, but you can do some, you can publish some of the work that you're presenting on here and that we're seeing.

That will get in the hands of the folks in healthcare that can use that information to actually make sustainable change in their own organizations. And I think that's a really unique component of the journal that you don't typically see. Um, you don't necessarily need p-value to publish here. And I think that's the beauty of some of the work that, that we're doing.

Now

[00:10:32] Joe Keebler: a second that, that, if you did work at this conference, please feel free to submit it to the Healthcare Journal. It's, uh, for consideration or to the main Human Factors journal and then also. In early fall, probably September, we'll probably open calls for next year for submissions. So people should be keeping their eye out and be ready to make her work for fall for the new Chicago conference in the year.

So,

[00:10:51] Elyse Hallett: well, thank you both so much for, you know, being part of this be, um, You might remember from the last time we did the interview with the way we always end the podcasts with the classic. It depends, as you know of these, you've been factors of the classic. Um, so you know, on the count of three we'll just end with, it depends.

1, 2, 3. It depends. I am joined today by far Su Dwyer and Tony Andre, welcome you.

It's great to have you both. Um, before we jump into, you know, talking about, you know, aspects about this conference, aspects about human factors in, in healthcare, uh, would you mind introducing yourselves a little bit, your role, what your, you know, job is outside of H F E S? Cuz you two I know are, are both very busy, like actually as professional, you know, human factors.

I don't wanna say just professionals, researchers included. So I'll start with Tony.

[00:11:52] Tony Andre: Our main goal promised parents put,

[00:11:56] Elyse Hallett: that's a

[00:11:57] Tony Andre: big goal. Put the gold. Uh, I am Director of Interface Analysis Associates, which is a human backers consulting firm specializing in healthcare. Not surprisingly, and this is our 30th year in business.

And when I'm not running my company, I am an adjunct professor of factors in ergonomics at San Jose State University. Fantastic.

[00:12:24] Elyse Hallett: Two hats. How about

[00:12:26] Tony Andre: arza?

[00:12:26] Farzan Sasangohar: Also wear two hats. Uh, one is the associate professor in industrial systems enduring at Texas Sand University. My second hat is in a hospital called Houston Methodist.

Uh, I'm the, uh, division chief for health systems engineering. There

[00:12:47] Elyse Hallett: learning something new every day. But yeah, definitely a lot of hats. It sounds like both of you are, are juggling, but on top of that, it's not just that you're also, as I understand, involved with this, uh, journal. That's gonna be coming out shortly. Would you mind explaining a little bit more about what that is, the intent and even the origin

[00:13:07] Tony Andre: of it?

Well, it's already out. Yep. Ah, it's fantastic. Uh, human factors in healthcare, it is. We are the co-editors in chief and the reason we're co. Is because we decided to have two sides or personalities to one journal focused on human factors in healthcare. Uh, one, and I'll let Za talk about it, that Faran manages is the research side, like a traditional journal.

Unqualified is mainly research, right? Uh, Uh, we wanted to do something different cuz I'd live in the practice world. Uh, I'm a practitioner. I work for medical device at pharma companies and I do a lot of research, but it's not like hypothesis testing. We do device development, design ethnography now one.

For all that great work that you know, you've experienced, um, you know, represented at this conference this week. And so that's called the applied side. So I managed the applied side. And Faran manages the research side. Uh, and then the other uniquely spur the human factors community element of the journal.

It's open access. That means is when we publish an article, it goes online. The entire world could read it and download it. There's no subscription and you know, no model where you only get it if you belong to some society then and get their journal. It. Available for the world of water and frog and experience.

[00:14:53] Elyse Hallett: That's huge. From data access perspective, anything that you'd like to tack

[00:14:57] Farzan Sasangohar: up? Yeah, the, the research side of it, uh, even though it's a traditional research journal, uh, just like human factors, uh, there's some twist to it. First of all, we want it to be very, uh, external. It's not just the human factors community.

We really wanted to do humid factors to external world and receive submissions, uh, in the medical domain in healthcare when people who do humid factors done knowing it. So by having an open journal, I think it serves that purpose of reaching out to maybe beyond just the H I V S community. Um, plus, uh, there's still a focus on practitioners.

So, uh, papers that are submitted have a practitioner, uh, takeaway section, practicable implications, so emphasis still on impact and, and takeaways for

[00:15:47] Tony Andre: practitioners.

[00:15:49] Elyse Hallett: I, I think that's fantastic because really that captures the essence of this conference that I think is so great in bringing the different human factors professionals together, both.

The like applied industry side and the, you know, research embedded hospital side. Because I really think it's from those two perspectives that we can really start solving those, those hard questions that, you know, we're all kind of acing.

[00:16:12] Tony Andre: And it was order of this event, cuz like you just said it here in the main hallway here of the event.

I'm Gary standing next to a professor. An industry member, like someone from a medical device company and a human factors practitioner's right behind you. You know what I'm saying? Like, we're all at this event together and we're not even, we're not fractionated. I, the professors are at one foreigner, you know, it's just all intermixed.

So, uh, born from this conference was that idea. Let's have a new journal cuz there's lots of content that needs to be. see it, Lee. And then let's represent to both the practitioner and the researcher.

[00:16:58] Elyse Hallett: That's fantastic. So if you know folks are interested in, um, finding this journal or submitting to this journal, what information can we give to them?

[00:17:10] Farzan Sasangohar: It's an Elvir journal, it has a website. It's not very difficult to find Heid factors at Health Theory. We pay attention to the bulletins published by hs. It's advertised from time to time. Uh, Tony and I are always available to have ideas and just wanna run by as you turn to skull. And you'd be surprised how occlusive the journal is.

I mean, sometimes, but yeah, I have this idea that it's not really MF after. And once they talk to us and they push them a little bit and you know, they push themselves to kind of make it relevant to these audience, uh, they become to a fit. So, uh, many different ways of getting involved, talking to us, just looking at, uh, at the website, uh, looking at the recent publications to get a bill and the sense of the skull of what we published.

And it's a great opportunity. Right now we're running IT journals, running it from Ion, it's. The huge discount they added is, makes it very affordable. So we compare this to other open journals. Uh, this is a very good time to publish, uh, in human

[00:18:16] Tony Andre: back now care. Fantastic. Yeah. If you go to the, Hs site, right.

hfs.org in publications you can get to it and then you can just Google Human Factors and Healthcare Journal of, we Getsu it and then that'll throughout bring you to the, the actual journal site with Eler, with the publish. Excellent.

[00:18:39] Elyse Hallett: Well, I certainly am very excited to poke into this a little bit. Um, you know, especially this open access part, I think is huge.

Yeah. From the, the, the, you know, uh, practitioner side. Um, but yeah, so thanks for, for giving a voice to folks who are struggling, you know, with these problems out in the real world and not knowing, you know, where to, to put their lessons learned and their solutions. So I think this is gonna be very

[00:19:06] Tony Andre: exciting.

Uh, I'll, I'll give you one example of the difference. So we're a society that has about 4,500 mentors. And so while it's very prestigious to publish in Human Factors, it's mainly read by our members and then by a fraction of those, right? A few published in Human Factors. Us just for fun, say maybe 2000 people Rent Thek, but we're a new journal and we, in our editorial board meeting y.

We have some articles that already have, uh, 9,500 downloads because it's open to the whole world. So our authors could end up, you know, having something viewed or read by hundreds of thousands of people, cuz there's nothing they have to, the readers have to subscribe to. Uh, so it's a different mindset, but, uh, it's like ultimately what every author wants.

Everyone to read what they've done. Mm-hmm. So I think it's really

[00:20:11] Farzan Sasangohar: exciting. Yeah, I think researched or rep pinkies in general can have an impact unless they're wri. Uh, and so the spirit of journal makes it possible. Brianon our second year, uh, thought it would finish the second year if it hits 50,000, download.

In our second year British paper. So I think it's gonna help our scientific community, it's gonna help everybody, this community, to become more visible, more relatable. Yeah. And so that's one of the missions of the journal.

[00:20:42] Elyse Hallett: Well, that's fantastic. Well, and congratulations to you both for. You know, it already receiving so many views and, you know, hope that, you know, we can continue to get the word out so that just increases and we can get that information

[00:20:56] Tony Andre: out to the world.

Yeah, me too. For the opportunity.

[00:20:58] Elyse Hallett: Absolutely. Um, but I know you fall, you know, in addition to all the hats you're already wearing, are also involved in some upcoming events and, um, you know, other areas of human factors. Um, Faran, I understand that you're involved in the upcoming H F V S conference. Anything you wanna plug or mention for that?

Sure.

[00:21:18] Tony Andre: I

[00:21:18] Farzan Sasangohar: am so excited with the annual meeting. This is gonna be one of our biggest events. I be Washington, dc uh, we are gonna have, this time, we're gonna have an emphasis on impact again, and practitioners. So we did a few things. Uh, being a fairly identified practitioner, practitioner papers, or submiss.

We're gonna use that throughout the program. So it, it doesn't look like a purely academic program. It's gonna be their practitioner failure made changes to presentation format. So, all presentation now end with, you know, practitioner takeaway, uh, and practical implications. Uh, this gonna be an, a new emphasis on UX and usability.

Uh, we traditionally have this usability day or the UX day on Wednesday of the conference. We're reformatting it. It's gonna be a calling, new experience this year with new interactive events, deal panels, uh, a lot of stuff going on. They have an ad hoc committee working on that right now. Plus we in Washington, DC such an exciting place and that gives us an opportunity to hear from some of these federal agencies or allies to human factors, uh, which you usually don't hear from.

So they're working on that. Talking to NF n nih, H r. Va, f b, you name it. All those, uh, we can support our signs and funders die. They're gonna be there and they don't have information sessions, panels. It's a really exciting year for networking opportunities. Uh, yeah, and I just had a, um, uh, information session on this and in the Factors task, uh, just last month.

Uh, so if you want more details, I shared a

[00:23:04] Tony Andre: lot more there.

[00:23:06] Elyse Hallett: Um, well, you know, it doesn't hurt to have redundancy out there. So for those who are hearing about all the exciting stuff happening at this conference, um, you know, and are bummed that you miss it, don't miss that H F E S general conference. It, it's gonna be pretty exciting.

And it sounds like with a lot of this refresh format, it's, you know, gonna have a lot more practical, you know,

[00:23:29] Tony Andre: takeaways for us equity

[00:23:30] Farzan Sasangohar: year and, uh, I just wanna share that with the very large number of submission this

[00:23:37] Tony Andre: year. Oh wow. A lot more last

[00:23:39] Farzan Sasangohar: year. So you're gonna have much work variety and you know, much beaver program this

[00:23:45] Tony Andre: year.

That's

[00:23:46] Elyse Hallett: fantastic. Uh, well definitely looking forward to that.

[00:23:50] Tony Andre: You know, I'd say that's in October and that, you know, for anyone who wants to just. Immersed in the field cuz the entire field is represented. That's the GOAT to event. Any, any time I set my students there, it's been life changing. Mm. And they never, they never anticipated that just going to a con uh, a conference.

You know, would be more than Gopi to a conference. Uh, and it always ends up being life altering it.

[00:24:21] Elyse Hallett: Oh, I could definitely attest to that cuz I was in those student shoes and started with the general H F E S conference and so I, I second what Tony just said, Hey, go for

[00:24:30] Tony Andre: your life. Yeah. You're like, this is my home, this is my career.

I can't believe, you know how much fun I had the people I'm. The authors of my textbooks, how friendly they were, the, the students I met. Uh, it's a, it's an amazing

[00:24:47] Elyse Hallett: experience. Well, and the opportunity to see human factors in so many different areas, like they're all represented there. So it's a good way to kind of test it out if you're not quite sure of which, you know, specialty

[00:25:00] Tony Andre: you want to go into.

Yeah. That's fantastic. And for student

[00:25:04] Farzan Sasangohar: edits, if they're listening, there are new opportunities. We usually have the student career professional develop day, wonderful day dedicated to students. We recap that. Plus this year we starting PhD, tk, so it's a selected program to train the next generational professors in ima Factor, factor and ergonomics.

Uh, it's gonna start this year and that's a great opportunity for students who are interested in academia. Plus the student career days is such a nice event. We usually have a hundred to 200 students attending and that's all free. That's all included in the registration and we keep that registration very low.

It compare HSPs s to other engineering conferences, similar size of societies. You know, we haven't really increased the registration, kept it affordable. I think really the best math of the buck out there for

[00:25:55] Tony Andre: one bigger program, uh, spot half the price of. Half the ads, but

[00:26:00] Farzan Sasangohar: it'll be absolute. That's

[00:26:02] Elyse Hallett: fantastic.

Um, so students, if you're listening, definitely check it out. Cannot recommend it enough. Tony, before we wrap up, anything that you'd like to, um, discuss in your, the human factors world?

[00:26:16] Tony Andre: Well, uh, just that the Healthcare Human Factor Symposium we're all at right now, enjoying where Orlando, Florida is gonna take place next year in Chicago.

And this year was amazing. Our highest attendance ever, you know, bouncing back from Covid, but Chicago has always been our peak. Uh, it was our previous two records, so we're expecting a huge turnout. Uh, if this week was anything, you know, reflective of where we're going, it's gonna be amazing in Chicago. So, I mean, I would just tell people both if you're in it or wanna be in healthcare, human factors, you have to go to the sabet.

I mean, this should be your, your horn. Wow. So, yeah, it's gotta be a great event. I gotta work on the opening keynote speaker. Win a great one this year. We did. So I'm taking suggestions for that. And if people. Learn about how to get involved in the event or how they might end up presenting or just about attending, uh, they could just contact me.

[00:27:29] Elyse Hallett: That's fantastic. Well, I know I'm already counting the days until that conference. This has been a great year and I think a lot of people are really excited to be back in person seeing, you know, the people that they always see at this conference every year. So it's infor,

I

[00:27:44] Tony Andre: mean, our field, it's called Human factory.

Yeah. So the human. He kept from each other. That's right. I might also add that, uh, well actually, but we're in Hilton for, not that I stock in Hilton, but uh, the Agile meeting, the hotel is an historic hotel. It's actually the hotel Ronald Reagan, uh, was leaving when he got shot. Oh, wow. Uh, so it's an amazing venue.

We're at, uh, uh, Hilton in Chicago, which is also kind of famous cuz the Mooni, the fugitive was spelled there. And in the ballroom of our keynote, uh, plenary session is like a big scene of the movie took place in there. And that's very recognized older people, but great venues, two great cities. Uh, if you're in the field, you have to.

[00:28:35] Elyse Hallett: Well, it's a great opportunity to, to go visit some pretty cool places. Yeah. Well, Raza and Tony, thank you so much for being on the show. Um, it's, you know, been great like learning about, you know, more opportunities that are out there to really support human factors, you know, professionals, you know, in the field regardless of what exactly they're doing.

So it's a pretty exciting. As you may know, we always end the podcast with a classic. It depends because a human factors, it always depends. So, um, with the countdown we'll just all say it depends together. You ready? Excellent. It Depends.