HFES Health Care Technical Group Webinar: Connecting Human Factors/Ergonomics Theory with Applications in Health Care: A Systems Approach to Patient Safety and Quality of Care

Abigail R. Wooldridge is an Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow in the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering. Her research focuses on engineering sociotechnical systems to support team performance and improve outcomes, particularly in health care and health-related settings. She has courtesy appointments in Computer Science, Health and Kinesiology, School of Information Sciences, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, Coordinated Science Laboratory, National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Biomedical and Translational Sciences at Carle Illinois College of Medicine. She is an ARCHES Faculty Fellow at OSF HealthCare and a Research Associate at the Mayo Clinic. Dr. Wooldridge received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on Human Factors and Ergonomics; she also has worked in industry, with experience in process improvement consulting, decision support and surgical scheduling. Her work has been funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), The Physicians’ Foundation, Jump Applied Research in Community Health through Engineering and Simulation and the University of Illinois System. Her edited volume, Advancing Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice Through Human Systems Engineering, received the Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2020 Award. In 2021, she was awarded the Presidential Medallion from University of Illinois System and the inaugural Robert L. Wears Early Career Award by the Health Care Technical Group of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES). In 2024, she received the Bentzi Karsh Early Career Service Award and the Inclusion Award from HFES, and her PhD advisee, Kaitlyn Dallas, received the K.U. Smith Student Award from the International Ergonomics Association.

Brittany L. Anderson-Montoya is the Lead Human Factors Specialist for Teladoc Health’s Patient Safety Team. Brittany received her PhD in Human Factors Psychology from Old Dominion University in 2014. She has over 15 years of healthcare human factors and patient safety simulation experience and was awarded the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society A. R. Lauer Safety Award in 2024. Before joining Teladoc Health, she led the development of the Human Factors Program for Atrium Health, where she worked to develop a human factors approach for Root Cause Analysis, a human factors product framework for the system, and a framework for executing applied human factors work to support patient safety. She has actively conducted and published research integrating human factors, simulation, and healthcare for the advancement of patient safety.

Dr. Kathryn Wust is an assistant teaching professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She is a trained industrial and systems engineer and human factors and ergonomics specialist who is committed to transforming complex systems through sociotechnical systems design. Dr. Wust’s teaching and research center around the concept of collaboration. Her pedagogical approach involves creating an active, inclusive, and collaborative learning environment where students have the opportunity to learn and apply new theories, skills, concepts, and techniques. Her research focus has been in health care settings, where she has used qualitative methods and applied sociotechnical systems principles to understand how patients and clinicians collaborate during complex processes to inform system redesign.

Matthew Nare is a doctoral candidate studying Industrial Engineering and Management with a graduate certificate in Healthcare Administration at Oklahoma State University (OSU). He is currently the president of the OSU Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Student Chapter and the Student Representative for Human Factors Transforming Healthcare. His professional experience includes time as a medical device human factors consultant and embedded research intern with MedStar Health, Children’s Mercy Hospital, and Medical University of South Carolina. Matthew’s research focuses on improving healthcare by understanding the systems factors that contribute to clinician performance and patient safety.