Jacob Seagull

F. Jacob Seagull, is Assistant Professor of Learning Health Sciences. He has worked since 2000 in the field of medical human factors, quality improvement and patient safety. He founded and currently directs the Patient Safety and Quality Leadership (PASQUAL) Scholars program, and co-directs the Medical School’s Path of Excellence in Patient Safety, Quality Improvement and Complex Systems. Dr. Seagull has a background in human-computer interaction, aviation psychology, and medical human factors. His work includes development and testing of online training to improve compliance to sterile practices, and development of a computerized checklist for just-in-time training for medical emergencies. He has carried out research regarding the effects of various technologies on human performance within the domain of medical care provision, such as telemedicine, advanced interfaces for anesthesiology, and alarms systems in medical devices. His research interests include patient safety, human perception and performance, and cognitive engineering. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Engineering Psychology. He received his M.S. in Engineering Psychology and Behavioral Sciences from the Technion—The Israel Institute of Technology, and his A.B. with high honors in Psychology from the University of Michigan.

Areas of Interest

Research and scholarly interests: research design and methodology, human factors, patient safety, quality improvement, human perception and performance, technology design and implementation for education and safety

Subject-matter expertise: human-computer interaction, human factors and ergonomics, communication and teamwork, simulation techniques, simulator development, video, eye tracking, objective observational methods

Other professional highlights:

• Co-inventor of a patent for techniques for delivering coordination data for a shared facility (no. 8,135,602), using a hybrid tangible and electronic interface to improve operating room efficiency.
• Co-inventor of a patent for a simulated abdominal wall (no. 8,297,982), allowing low-cost, high fidelity simulation of minimally invasive surgery.
• Faculty, Master of Health Professions Education
• Co-developed “CaringWithCompassion.org,” an award winning website for educating providers about caring for underserved and at risk populations, including interactive web-based simulation game.
• Founder and current director of Patient Safety and Quality Leadership (PASQUAL) Scholars program.
• Former Chair and Program Chair for Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Health Care Technical Group, as well as founding member of Annual Symposium on Healthcare Human Factors organizing committee.
• Assessment development (item writing) for AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education (ACE) Consortium initiative.
• Published Articles or Reviews

Selected publications:

• Seagull FJ, Rooney DM. Filling a void: Developing a standard subjective assessment tool for surgical simulation through focused review of current practices. Surgery. 2014 Sep;156(3):718-22.PMID: 25175506.
• Seagull FJ. Human factors tools for improving simulation activities in continuing medical education. J Contin Educ Health Prof. 2012 Fall;32(4):261-8.
• Mlyniec P, Jerald J, Yoganandan A, Seagull FJ, Toledo F, Schultheis U. iMedic: a two-handed immersive medical environment for distributed interactive consultation. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2011;163:372-8.
• Ghaderi I, Vaillancourt M, Sroka G, Kaneva PA, Seagull FJ, George I, Sutton E, Park AE, Vassiliou MC, Fried GM, Feldman LS. Performance of simulated laparoscopic incisional hernia repair correlates with operating room performance. Am J Surg. 2011 Jan;201(1):40-5.
• Seagull FJ, Sutton E, Lee T, Godinez C, Lee G, Park A. A validated subjective rating of display quality: the Maryland Visual Comfort Scale. Surg Endosc. 2011 Feb;25(2):567-71.
• Chen JY, Seagull FJ, Nagy P, Lakhani P, Melhem ER, Siegel EL, Safdar NM. Computer input devices: neutral party or source of significant error in manual lesion segmentation? J Digit Imaging. 2011 Feb;24(1):135-41.