The Human Factor
Human factors for high-consequence work.
AI is arriving in dispatch centres, fire halls, ambulances and hospitals. We help emergency services and healthcare organizations decide where it belongs, how far to rely on it, and how to govern it, so the people doing the work can trust it when it is right and question it when it is not.
The same science shapes how we assess organizations, build plans, and help services learn from serious events.
Learning from a serious event? Start with After the Call
For fire, paramedic and healthcare services, emergency management, and other high-consequence organizations. Grounded in published human factors and safety science.
The practice
Three practice areas, one science
Every engagement starts from the same question: how do people actually make decisions when it matters? Human factors science gives us the methods. Operational experience keeps them honest.
Practice area one
AI Trust, Safety and Governance
Where AI decision support belongs, how much to rely on it, and how to govern it. Pre-deployment assessment, governance frameworks, in-service monitoring and practical implementation support.
How we approach AI→Practice area two
Assessment, Strategy and Planning
Organizational and readiness assessments, strategic and master plans, community risk assessments, emergency plans and exercises. Delivered through the ARIA Method: Assess, Redesign, Implement, Advance.
What we take on→Practice area three
After-Action Learning
After the Call: a free method for learning from incidents, near misses and good catches, practical courses that teach it, and independent learning reviews when an event needs outside eyes.
See After the Call→AI Trust, Safety and Governance
AI your people can rely on, for the right reasons
The goal is appropriate reliance, not maximum trust. Lean on a tool too much and its errors pass unchallenged. Lean on it too little and it sits unused. Automation also changes the human's job, often in ways that make the hardest moments harder. Getting this right is a human factors problem before it is a technology problem.
Before you deploy
The decisions a tool will touch, how it can fail, what the people using it need to know, and a Do Not Touch list of where AI should not go.
Once it is running
Monitoring reliance, overrides and drift, so you know whether people trust the tool for the right reasons and problems surface early.
Governance that works on shift
Policies, accountability, procurement criteria and oversight that hold up on a busy night, not only in a report to council or the board.
After-Action Learning
After the Call
A practical way for fire, paramedic and healthcare services to learn from incidents, near misses and good catches, without turning the review into a search for someone to blame. The method is free. Our courses teach it.
The manual
A method your service can adopt: event triage, three tiers of review, a learning firewall, a model policy and templates. Free under a Creative Commons licence.
About the manual→The courses
Short, practical courses for joint health and safety committee members, safety officers, paramedic supervisors, quality leads and senior leaders. Certificate of completion.
See the courses→Support when you need it
An expert read of your own post-incident analysis, annual partner agreements, and independent learning reviews when an event needs outside eyes.
How reviews work→Where to start
Where does your organization stand?
For AI
AI Readiness Assessment
A five-minute self-evaluation across six dimensions of readiness, with a personalized report on where to start and where to be careful.
Take the AI Readiness Assessment→For learning from events
Learning System Maturity Assessment
Thirty questions across six parts of a learning system, from near-miss reporting to follow-through on recommendations. Your results point to free resources first.
Take the self-assessment→Who we are
A principal and a bench of associates
The Human Factor is led by Scott Ramey. Scott brings thirty years in high-consequence systems: critical care flight paramedic, Deputy Chief in both paramedic and fire services, and Assistant Fire Chief. He is now a PhD candidate in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, researching trust and appropriate reliance in AI-assisted decision support.
Our associates are independent specialists who join an engagement when their expertise fits the work. The team behind each project is shaped to the problem, and you always know who is doing the work.
“I lead every engagement myself, and I bring in associates when the work needs expertise beyond mine. Clients get one accountable person and the right people around them.”Scott Ramey, PrincipalMeet the team →
Start with a conversation
Thirty minutes, no charge. Tell us what you are working on: an AI tool you are weighing, a plan that has to hold up, or an event you need to learn from. Please do not include personal health information or details that could identify a person or an event.