An Action-based Hierarchical Task Analysis for Evaluating Medical Device Safety

Since the release of the Institute of Medicine medical error report in 1999, human errors in medicine have become of great interest and concern in the medical field. Like other landmark events in the history of human factors, events like this have increased overall awareness of human factors within this domain. Of particular concern are device level incidents stemming from poorly designed interfaces. For some time, literature has suggested that the number of injuries resulting from these types of problems far exceeds that of injuries due to device failures (e.g., Cooper, Newbower, Long, & McPeek, 1978).