Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied® Editor: Wendy A. Rogers ISSN: 1076-898X Published Quarterly, beginning in March

Call for Papers
Special Issue on Human Performance in Health Care

The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied invites submissions of manuscripts that address issues related to applied experimental psychology and human performance in all aspects of health care.

Human error and safety in health care systems has been a focus of national concern since the 1999 Institute of Medicine report. That report also emphasized the critical role of human factor issues as both a contributor to medical error that threatens safety and an approach to mitigating error and improving safety.

Theories and methods related to human performance and cognition have played an increasingly important role in guiding research related to health care, error, and system safety.

JEP: Applied invites manuscripts that describe empirical research that investigates any aspect of health care with implications for understanding and improving health care processes and practices.

An ideal submission will describe work that meets the following criteria:

1. The work is motivated by and contributes to theories of human performance (relevant to cognitive or other psychological processes).
2. The work is experimental in the sense that it provides evidence for causal influences; multiexperiment studies may be important for providing such evidence. Observational methods may also be appropriate as long as the study design provides compelling suggestions of causal factors.
3. The work produces findings that have immediate and obvious practical relevance. Employing participants (e.g., providers or patients) and tasks that are representative of actual health care contexts are especially sought.

Topics of interest for the special issue are not constrained and may include

• the impact of information technology on practitioner workload
• evaluation of the design of health care displays (e.g., patient monitoring)
• impact of operator factors (e.g., fatigue, situation awareness) or task-related factors (e.g., interruptions) on error or other aspects of performance
• teamwork processes in critical care
• patient self-care

If you are interested in contributing to this special issue, please e-mail both guest editors, Dan Morrow and Frank Durso, by May 15, 2010. Include a tentative title and brief summary of the planned manuscript. The letter of intent is optional.

All solicited manuscripts will be peer-reviewed and required to meet the standards of any JEP: Applied manuscript.

The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2010.

The special issue will be published mid-2011.

Papers should be submitted through the JEP: Applied web portal.

Please indicate in your cover letter that you wish for the paper to be considered as part of the special issue on human performance in health care.