Human Factors Sciences Webinar Series: John Toussaint
Webinar: Human Factors – Saving Lives and Improving Care with Scant Resources but Imaginative Leadership
Date: Monday 24 June 2025
Time: 14:00–15:00 UTC
Register: Click here to register
The WONCA Working Party on Quality and Safety warmly invites you to the next webinar in our Human Factors Science Series. This event explores how healthcare leaders can drive meaningful change, even with limited resources, by applying human factors thinking and leadership approaches from other sectors.
Speaker: Dr John Toussaint
Dr Toussaint will present on:
“Saving Lives and Improving Care with Scant Resources but Imaginative Leadership”
Dr John Toussaint is an Internist and one of the foremost figures in the adoption of organizational excellence principles in healthcare. He founded Catalysis a nonprofit education institute in 2008. Catalysis has launched peer-to-peer learning networks, developed in-depth workshops, and created many products – including books, DVDs and webinars. Catalysis sponsors the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit each year – both in the U.S. and in Europe.
He has published articles in major medical journals such as Health Affairs and JAMA and in major business journals such as Harvard Business Review. He has written three award winning books chronicling the journey of many organization on the journey to enterprise excellence. He continues to be a student of building excellence into healthcare operations. He has learned from over 220 organizations in 19 countries transferring this knowledge into articles and books and to executive teams around the world.
Drawing on lessons from aviation safety and the Shingo principles of organizational excellence, Dr Toussaint will present a practical framework for improving patient outcomes by transforming leadership behaviours and healthcare systems. He shares examples from real-world health settings, including how hospitals have reduced infection and maternal complications through a culture of improvement.
This session will cover:
- Why most healthcare errors stem from human factors, not equipment or technology
- How creative leadership can overcome systemic and resource challenges
- Tools and principles for building a continuous improvement culture
- Case studies from hospitals applying these methods with success
Host: Dr Roanne Osborne, MD
This session is part of WONCA’s Human Factors Science Series. It is designed for family doctors, clinical leaders, and anyone working to build safer, more effective healthcare systems in primary care.
Human Factors Science is the study of how people interact with their environments, systems, and tasks – especially in high-risk or complex settings. Originally recognised as vital in the aviation industry, where most accidents were found to be caused by human error rather than technical faults, its principles are now increasingly applied in healthcare. In primary health care (PHC), Human Factors can help reduce errors, improve system design, and build safer, more resilient care practices. WONCA’s Working Party on Quality and Safety champions this approach globally. Through initiatives like the WHO Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030, the Working Party – and its Human Factors Core Group – supports family doctors to strengthen care delivery by promoting safety culture, leadership, and continuous improvement across PHC systems.
Watch Previous Webinars in the Series