8.30am

Registration open          

9am

Opening address and Welcome to Country

Professor Roland De Marco | University of the Sunshine Coast

Professor Paul Salmon | University of the Sunshine Coast

Mr Lyndon Davies| Gubbi Gubbi Dance Troupe

9.30am

Keynote: Human Factors: Accessing the cutting edge in health

Dr Stuart Marshall | Monash University

Until recently there has been a disconnect between Human Factors / Ergonomics (HFE) specialists and clinical healthcare settings. Clinicians dealing with real-world problems are still mostly unaware of what HFE specialists and the tools of their trade can offer. There are only a handful of HFE practitioners embedded in the Australian health system and their work generally goes unnoticed.

In this presentation I will explore some examples of how using HFE theory to address clinical problems has enhanced patient safety in Australian hospitals. I will present the diversity of the application of tools from neonatology to end of life care, recognising the social nature of health and the effects of novel technologies. Further, I will explain what measures we are taking to improve the visibility of HFE within clinical settings. Future education of the health workforce is crucial in progressing the HFE agenda in health sector.

10.30am

Morning Tea 

11am

Walking (and riding) on the wild side: How will vulnerable road users adapt to highly automated vehicles

Dr Gemma Read | USC

Highly automated vehicles are expected to enter our road system in the near future. While these new technologies promise a range of safety and mobility benefits, questions are emerging about how they will interact with vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. This presentation will outline current research findings in relation to the interaction of automated vehicles and vulnerable road users, with a focus on how vulnerable road users may adapt their behaviour to automated vehicles over time. Will highly automated vehicles offer a safety utopia, or will they introduce new risks?

11.30am

Don’t forget us! The challenges and opportunities in applying human factors approaches in practice

Dr Clare Dallat | The Outdoor Education Group / USC

It is well documented that an aim of human factors methods and approaches should be available, usable and applied in practice (Shorrock & Williams, 2016). This, however, is a significant challenge in workplace contexts where low uptake of new methods, resistance to change, contextual challenges and time-constraints being common constraints to the achievement of such an aim. This presentation will report on the experienced challenges and opportunities that accompanied attempts to integrate human factors approaches within several large and small projects within one specific sector, over a multi-year period. Several key principles to optimize research into practice will be shared and attendees will depart with practical and achievable strategies to implement in their work contexts straight away.

12noon

Lunch

1pm

Human habitats and human factors: optimising health, safety, and efficiency in the design and development of the cities we need

Dr Nicholas Stevens | USC

The current approaches to the design and delivery of our urban environments is failing us. After centuries of city building people do not feel happier, safer or more connected to their communities; chronic health issues continue to escalate; while our cities are not more efficient, equitable or even convenient.

At all scales of human existence we are currently challenged by technological, sociological and environmental change and the opportunities this presents. The cities and towns we live, work and relax within – our human habitats - present as the essential physical and cognitive interfaces for meeting these challenges.

This presentation details the scale and pace of change our cities face; and outlines the imperative need to explore these complex challenges from Human Factors and Ergonomics perspectives. It will outline a range of case studies and opportunities for exploring complexity and beginning the process of optimising, retrofitting and redesigning our urban environments to meet our current and future needs.

1.30pm

Systems thinking in action - preventing patient handling injuries

Associate Professor Sharon Newman | WorkSafe Victoria

There is now considerable evidence that musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) are caused by multiple, interacting factors across the work system. In practice, however, most investigations focus on the injured person and the immediate context. As a result, the response to MSDs is often focused on training, or retraining, individuals. This presentation will describe the development of an investigation toolkit designed to help shift the focus during investigations from the injured worker to the broader work system, based on Rasmussen’s Accimap. The presentation will provide an overview of the toolkit, and the findings from a 12 month implementation trial with 10 health services in Australia.

2.15pm

Afternoon tea

2.30pm

Keynote: Methods and Models for Collision Analysis

Prof Neville Stanton | University of Southampton

Unlike aviation, maritime and rail, road traffic collision investigation currently does not have a national investigatory body in the UK. Yet the numbers of people killed and seriously injured on the roads is far in excess of those other domains. The research presented in this talk is part of a larger project investigating the development of a road collision investigation branch in the UK. An important part of the process involves identifying a suitable accident analysis method to support investigations with the development of suitable interventions. This talk will describe a study that was undertaken to identify a systemic method for investigating road collisions. Eight potential methods were identified and compared using a common incident, that of the Uber collision with a pedestrian in 2018. The methods were analysed against four sets of criteria: systemic, theoretical, methodological and practical. The AcciMap method, together with the accompanying Actor Map, was recommended as an appropriate approach to support road traffic collision investigations.

3.30pm

Where we’re going we don’t need roads! Back to the Human Factors Future

Professor Paul Salmon | USC

Work and societal systems are changing dramatically, primarily through the introduction or uptake of increasingly sophisticated technologies, the internet of things, social media, advanced automation, and artificial intelligence. The next decade or so thus represents a critical period for our discipline, with the opportunity for Human Factors to help create systems that have a significant and positive impact on global health and wellbeing. History tells us, however, that we have not been able to shape advanced technologies as we would wish, and that we have been seen largely as a reactive science. This presentation addresses this, and discusses pertinent future challenges that Human Factors can, and should respond to. Discussion will then focus on a series of theoretical, methodological, and practical advances that are required to ensure that Human Factors can fulfil its requisite role in the design, implementation and operation of tomorrow’s systems.

4pm

Presenter Q&A session

4.30pm

Closing: drinks and nibbles