Integrating Human Factors and Data Science to Advance Emergency Care

At a Glance

Emergency departments are vital access points for urgent health care, yet consistently delivering safe, efficient, and equitable care is challenging. This project, Integrating Human Factors and Data Science to Advance Emergency Care, from the Emergency Care Systems Laboratory (ECSL) at UW–Madison aims to significantly enhance emergency health care quality and accessibility across Wisconsin.

The project is led by Brian Patterson, MD, MPH, Department of Emergency Medicine, and will address two critical challenges in emergency health systems. In doing so, the project aims to create substantial improvements in emergency health care across Wisconsin, by ensuring faster, safer, and more equitable treatment for everyone who relies on emergency services. In addition, the ECSL model developed through this grant may serve as an example for similar improvements in emergency health care nationwide.

The Challenge

The project addresses two critical challenges in emergency health systems:

• The project will provide health care leaders with practical tools to design safer, more efficient patient care spaces, in emergency departments and more generally. By using a systematic human factors engineering approach that considers the needs of both patients and health care workers, hospitals can greatly improve patient safety, reduce waiting times and increase staff effectiveness. While traditionally applying these approaches have required human factors engineers hired as consultants or embedded in teams, this project will create tools for project personnel to apply these approaches without the need for specialist consultation. These tools will be freely available, making high-quality design practices accessible to others designing care spaces without access to these academic resources.
• Second, the project establishes a secure, integrated data-sharing platform connecting ambulance services (EMS) directly with hospital records. Currently, important patient information collected by emergency responders often remains disconnected from hospital systems, hindering effective patient care and quality improvement efforts. By linking these data, healthcare providers can better coordinate care, rapidly identify and respond to treatment issues, and address health disparities, particularly among vulnerable populations such as children and low-income individuals. This project will create such a linked database and use it to improve operational EMS workflows in Dane County while enabling EMS research. Furthermore, it will establish the feasibility of similar collaborations at other sites across the state and beyond.