In April I presented, “User Mishandling” Design for Users and Use Environment, at the International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care Virtual Conference.
Manufacturers often cite “user mishandling” as a root cause of device malfunctions and other adverse events. In the presentation, I encourage Human Factors professionals and medical device manufacturers to think beyond evaluating use errors and misuse in medical device development. We examine MAUDE data and suggest ways to predict and prevent “user mishandling” by re-framing user mishandling as an opportunity to improve device design to match real use and use environments.
