Human Factors in the Design of Medical Simulation Tools

This paper describes the human factor design issues relevant to medical simulation systems. Decision making in medical domains is an increasingly complex task that involves a number of stakeholders, sub-specialties and technologies. Medical simulation creates a lifelike situation for individuals to practice decision-making and procedural activities in a safe environment for the patients and professionals where it involves simulated human patients, emergency response and simulated animation. Evidence suggests that medical simulation improves the effectiveness, safety, and efficiency in health care services. Moreover, it has been shown to consistently deliver significant value to the organization, staff, or students in decision-making. Although medical simulation provided ideal approaches for addressing healthcare issues, the number of successful software implementation and development is relatively small compared with other established engineering disciplines, such as the manufacturing industry. Software quality models in particular offer the opportunity to systematically assess the level of compliance of software systems with industry standards. In addition, applying software quality models increase the customer satisfaction and decrease the quality cost.