The Human Factors Episode

In this episode, Amanda talks with Laura Barg-Walkow, PhD, a Human Factors Engineer on the Patient Safety Team at Children’s Hospital Colorado, about designing healthcare systems around how people actually work—not how we wish they would work.

Laura shares why errors and workarounds are often signs of system design problems, not individual failure. Together, she and Amanda explore the connection between human factors engineering and Coleman Associates’ DPI™ approach, including the importance of observing real work, understanding why decisions make sense in the moment, and removing the friction that affects patients and staff.

They discuss:

• Why “try harder” and “retrain” rarely solve underlying problems
• What workarounds reveal about broken processes
• The difference between work as imagined and work as actually performed
• How observation can uncover challenges that interviews alone may miss
• How to balance standardization with flexibility
• Why better flow is about removing friction—not making people work faster

It’s a conversation about replacing blame with curiosity and creating safer, more efficient, and more person-centered healthcare systems.

Guest: Dr. Laura Barg-Walkow

Host: Amanda Laramie

Thanks for listening!

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