Fran Ives, President of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors

Yeah.

So you're currently and I'm really intrigued by this.

So you're currently a fellow at Keele University and your knowledge mobilization.

Talk to me about what knowledge mobilization with and how that how that relates to human factors.

So yeah, that's the really interesting one, how it relates to human factors.

So knowledge mobilisation, the sort of work that we're doing is really trying to find bits of research in healthcare that have, you know, generated some maybe a new treatment a new pathway a new way of working or a new product but it's not that message that information that knowledge isn't getting to where it needs to be so so often in academia people are on research projects they've got funding for a certain period of time and once that funding is coming towards an end they're sort of looking for the next next bit of funding and And there isn't necessarily time built into that project to actually go and share and mobilize the information that they have developed.

So there's a real danger that brilliant research can sort of just end up on shelves gathering dust because it's not shared with the people who can actually do something with it.

So my role is to look at, well, how, you know, how can we better do that? So I work on a few different projects, bits of research that have been done.

And I work with sort of clinicians and patients, et cetera, to actually share that knowledge so that it can be implemented and used within health care for the benefits of the patients, but also families, carers and the clinicians.

And how that relates to human factors, I think it's, I think once you're a human factors person, you are always a human factors person.

You can't unthink like that.

So for me, one of the things that I find really interesting is, yes, I'm looking at this knowledge and how it can be mobilised across healthcare.

But of course, I'm looking at it in the sense, well, what would this innovation or what would this different way of working actually look like? You know, are we mobilizing something that is very academic, that on paper sounds brilliant, but doesn't actually translate very well to the mercy realities of health care? You know, and would actually we need to adapt this particular way of working? So, you know, I'm looking at one particular procedure at the moment, which is absolutely brilliant.

But what it means for the patient is two trips into theatre instead of one.

It also means that biopsy samples need to be sent over to Germany in a lab and spend six weeks there and then be couriered back.

That's a huge amount of paperwork.

That's hugely expensive.

So this procedure might be absolutely brilliant.

But from my human factors perspective, when I start to look at some of the challenges associated with this, I can then absolutely understand why some clinicians might say, absolutely not.

Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to bring patients in for an extra surgical procedure? Why would we want to spend the money currying tissue samples to Germany? Why would we want to have that uncertainty over when they're going to come back? So from my perspective, they link really, really nicely because I can look at the reality of how these innovations, this research, this new knowledge is actually going to land in healthcare.

It's really interesting and

always takes us back to this, you know, where we're talking about policy and procedure and it's all very well to have great academic knowledge knowledge and understanding but how do you translate that into the real world and again i'm just blown away by the lessons that you know lawyers could could um could learn from that you know again the transferability of it because okay so it's not about putting processes in place you know that require tissues to be flown to germany but but it is about providing advice that works for your client.

And we are historically, you know, an industry who like to prove how much we know.

And so we put it, you know, put reams and reams of you should do this and then you should do this, but actually practically no one's going to do that because it's just not going to work.

It's not practical commercial advice.