Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, IIT Kharagpur conducted a five days training course on Human Factors Engineering in Healthcare Systems in collaboration with Purdue University, USA from 16 to 20 May 2022, under the SPARC (Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration). The lecture sessions focused on four important aspects related to the healthcare systems including Information-centred Human Factors, Human Body-centred Ergonomics, Organisation-centred Human Factors and Applications of HFE in Healthcare Systems. Based on the outcome of this training course, a number of courses in the form of subject, laboratory and project are to be designed at UG and PG levels for Educational Institutes, Universities and Research Institutions along with development of syllabi for the course ‘Human Factors Engineering in Healthcare Systems’, as the core or elective subject. SPARC Project Principal Investigators (PIs) (Indian and International), Physician Experts and Academicians acted as the resource persons for the course. This training course was attended by a number of research scholars and postgraduate students from IIT Kharagpur and other educational institutions.
Renowned personalities like Professor Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur & Indian Co-PI ; Professor Denny Yu, Faculty, School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, USA & International PI; Dr. Sandip Halder, Consultant Surgeon, General Surgery, Department, Dr Gray’s Hospital, Elgin, Scotland, UK; Professor Somnath Gangopadhyay, Department of Physiology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata; Professor Jhareswar Maiti, Head of Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, IIT Kharagpur & Professor Pradip Kumar Ray, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, IIT Kharagpur & Indian PI addressed the participants.
Prof Pradip Kumar Ray,
Emeritus Professor,
Dept of Industrial & Systems Engineering,
IIT Kharagpur
“With active participation of International and Indian PIs of the project, invited physician experts and academics of repute, and effective interaction with the research scholars, the Training Programme has been a great success fulfilling its objectives. A unique academic course on Human Factors Engineering in Healthcare Systems with its relevance at the international level has been designed”, stated Prof Pradip Kumar Ray, Emeritus Professor, Dept of Industrial Systems Engineering, IIT Kharagpur.
The Human Factors Engineering discipline has been developed to encompass an increasing number and type of interactions between people and systems. The course is designed to teach both the fundamentals and applications of human factors and ergonomics in healthcare system. The topics covered in this course include human physiology and anthropometry, fatigue assessment, human information processing and control, assessment of environmental factors and fundamentals of industrial product design including interface design.
At the outset, Prof Pradip Kumar Ray, Emeritus Professor, IIT Kharagpur engaged the participants with the effects of ergonomics in designing human-product interfaces in healthcare systems and anthropomometry in worksystem design. On the second day Prof Jhareswar Maiti, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, IIT Kharagpur highlighted the cognitive load and data and analytics in human factors & ergonomics in healthcare. Prof Denny Yu, Faculty, School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, USA gave his insight on the current trends and interface design for jobs in healthcare systems with case studies on the third and fourth day. Dr. Yu is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine and is a Certified Professional Ergonomist (CPE). He serves on the Board of Directors for the Board of Certification of Professional Ergonomics (BCPE). Research from Dr. Yu’s group has been recognized by NIOSH Bullard-Sherwood Award as honorable mention, the RSJ/KROS Distinguished Interdisciplinary Research Award (RO-MAN) 2021 and the 2021 Human Factors Prize by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. He has published over 40 peer – review journal manuscripts in human factors engineering with a focus on discovering objective features from sensors and health datasets for understanding human behavior and performance in complex, high-stress environments.
From L-R : Prof Jhareswar Maiti, Head of Dept of Industrial & Systems Engineering; Prof Denny Yu, Faculty, School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, USA; Prof Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur and Prof Pradip Kumar Ray, Emeritus Professor, Dept of Industrial Systems Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. Yu remarked,” It is indeed a pleasure to visit IIT Kharagpur and collaborate on the ergonomics of the healthcare system. We look forward to future associations with the oldest IIT of India.”
Dr. Sandip Halder, Consultant Surgeon, General Surgery Department, Dr Gray’s Hospital, Elgin, Scotland, UK discussed about the use of automation systems and devices in healthcare and Prof Somnath Gangopadhyay, Department of Physiology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata explained the cognitive task analysis on the concluding days.
The Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) is an initiative of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India which aims at improving the research ecosystem of India’s higher educational institutions by facilitating academic and research collaborations between top ranked Indian Institutions and globally ranked foreign institutions, through Joint Research Projects involving mobility of students and faculty. The SPARC projects have a major impacts in providing the best international expertise to address major national problems, expose Indian academicians to the best collaborators abroad, enable international faculty to stay in India for a considerable duration, provide Indian students an opportunity to work in the world class laboratories, to develop strong bilateral relationships in research and improve the international ranking of Indian Institutions globally improving the research ecosystem of the country. About 390 projects of a grant worth INR 251.09 Crores were approved in its first phase.
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