The Department of Health Systems Management and Leadership, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta has organised a two-day workshop titled “Human Factors Ergonomics” on 19 and 20 May 2025, at the IT Sevices.
The main speaker was Prof. Marie Ward, Ph.D. C.ErgHF, FCIEHF, MIHFES, a Chartered Ergonomist and Human Factors Specialist and Health Systems Research and Learning Facilitator at the Quality and Safety Improvement Directorate in St James’s Hospital, Dublin and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Centre for Innovative Human Systems, School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland. The workshop was coordinated by Dr Kenneth Grech, Senior Lecturer, Department of Health Systems Management and Leadership.
Prof. Marie E. Ward is an international award-winning embedded researcher at St James's Hospital Dublin, Ireland where she is engaged in a programme of Health Systems Human Factors Ergonomics Research and Improvement. Marie holds a PhD in Psychology Human Factors from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at TCD’s multidisciplinary Centre for Innovative Human Systems which engages in Human Factors research and consultancy with all industries to improve human wellbeing and system performance. Marie is a lecturer on the Masters in Managing Risk and System Change (TCD) and the Masters in Human Factors in Patient Safety at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI); Chairperson of the Irish Human Factors and Ergonomics Society; a member of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (UK) special interest group on Artificial Intelligence in healthcare and a Chartered Ergonomist and Human Factors Specialist. Her research interests include co-designing new systems from a socio-technical perspective to enable patient and staff safety and wellbeing and system performance.
The topics covered in the workshop included Introduction to Human Factors Ergonomics, Human Factors and Patient Safety in Healthcare Systems Thinking & Patient Safety, Individual and Team Human Factors and Safety Nets and Integrating AI into Clinical Practice. The workshop was designed to provide students, healthcare professionals, administrators, and policy makers with an in-depth understanding of the latest developments and methodologies of human ergonomics and the interplay between AI and human factors ergonomics. It was extremely useful to assist health care professionals in devising and developing the appropriate structures and provisions to ensure the implementation of adequate policies and procedures in human factors ergonomics.
