SmartState Endowed Chair in Clinical Practice and Human Factors

Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina

Academic Focus:

• Applying human factors engineering principles to measure, model and reduce human error in acute care

• Understanding task, team, technology, environmental and organizational contributions to quality

• Ethnographic, observational and data mining methods for innovation and change in complex socio-technical systems

Ken is a human factors research practitioner who has spent more than twenty years studying the influence of tasks, teams, technologies and organizations on safety and performance in acute care. His work has been primarily conducted in the UK and USA, exploring trauma, cardiac, orthopedic, vascular, gastro-intestinal, spinal, and urological surgery, working alongside clinicians to develop and evaluate socio-technical systems approaches to quality, safety and performance. He has also contributed to healthcare research and improvement at hospitals in the Netherlands, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Dubai, Sao Paulo and Qatar. At any one time he is likely to be collaborating on a variety of federally funded projects exploring persistent systemic problems in clinical work from a human-centered perspective, such as robotic surgery, anesthesia medication delivery, sterile processing, retained foreign objects, neonatal resuscitation, communication, or diagnosis. Locally, he applies human factors expertise in accident analysis and quality improvement across the clinical enterprise, from signage design, falls, CLABSI, sepsis and failure-to-rescue to all manner of organizational reliability and safety concerns. Through more than 150 peer-reviewed journal articles, regular speaking engagements and media coverage, he has sought to engage audiences in the improvement of safety and quality in healthcare from a human-centred perspective.

Staff Scientist

Academic Focus:

• Applied Medical Anthropology and Ethnographic Research

• Patient Safety

• U.S. Health Policy

• Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR)

Sean Bruna, PhD, is a Staff Scientist in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. Trained as a medical anthropologist with expertise in health policy, Dr. Bruna has led interdisciplinary, community-engaged research with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution, among others. Before joining MUSC, he served as a Professor of Medical Anthropology at Western Washington University, where he mentored over 40 undergraduate and graduate students across BA, MA, and PhD programs. Most recently, Dr. Bruna was a Senior Advisor to the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), where he applied anthropological methods and mixed-methods research to national health policy, patient safety, and healthcare delivery improvement. His work included contributions to the White House’s Federal Evidence Agenda on Disability and leadership of major national initiatives such as the AHRQ Summit on Emergency Department Boarding and the AHRQ 35th Anniversary Summit on the Future of Health Services Research. A Latino scholar, Dr. Bruna holds a BA and MA from the University of Chicago and an MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico, with a research focus on chronic disease prevention in U.S.-Mexico border communities.

Research Program Coordinator

Gabe holds a B.S. in Biology from the College of Charleston and currently works in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina as part of the Embedded Human Factors and Clinical Safety Science Unit. He does research in Human Factors Engineering in Surgical Sterile Processing, Transplantation, and Quality Improvement in Healthcare Delivery. He enjoys public speaking and has given several presentations at international meetings across the country in support of the work of the MUSC human factors research team. With an awareness of the daily challenges that affect both patients and healthcare professionals, he aims to connect innovative research with clinical work environments to develop systems analysis and workplace intervention tools which may help improve patient safety and quality of care.

Academic Focus:

• Surgical Safety

• Clinical Human Factors Systems Engineering

• Cardiovascular Perfusion Safety

Connor served as an assistant professor and embedded human factors engineer in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at The Medical University of South Carolina. Connor is trained in viewing and studying clinical systems from the "systems" perspective which offers a more comprehensive view of how surgical performance is achieved through appropriate and timely interactions between people (surgeons, perfusionists, anesthesiologists, nurses, technologists, administrators), tools, tasks, and technologies. Dr. Lusk uniquely applies industrial, systems, and human factors engineering into the everyday practice of evidence-based medicine in clinical systems to support decision-making in uncertain and complex healthcare environments through a deep understanding of work systems and how systemic factors either prevent or facilitate medical errors. During her postdoctoral training, Connor became actively involved in research to assess and improve safety in cardiac surgery, cardiovascular perfusion, anesthesia medication delivery, robotic-assisted surgery, and sterile instrument reprocessing. Connor completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical human factors engineering at MUSC, both a Ph.D. and Master's at Auburn University in Industrial and Systems Engineering as a National Institute of Safety and Health (NIOSH) graduate fellow, and a B.S. in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from The University of Alabama. 

Julia is a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a B.S. in Biology / Biological Sciences, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. As a Research Assistant, she conducted surgical safety research in retained foreign objects and operating room turnover.

Jeffrey is a medical student at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville. As a Research Assistant, his primary focus was the development of systems tools to describe and improve the work being done in anesthesia and sterile processing. He also assisted with the deployment of team training interventions in robotic surgery and virtual reality assessment of the anesthesia work environment, aiming to help develop the operating room of the future.

Elise is a medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina. During her time with our team as a Research Assistant, her areas of interest included robotic surgery, sterile processing, maternal health, team training interventions, and developing systems engineering tools for anesthesia. She also worked on systematic improvements in labor and delivery, aiming to better understand healthcare disparities and promote patient safety.