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How the ICU follows orders: care delivery as a complex activity system
Brian Hazlehurst1, Carmit McMullen, Paul Gorman
1Kaiser Permanente Centerr for Health Research, Portland, OR, USA.
AMIA ... Annual Symposium Proceedings. AMIA Symposium
|January 20, 2004
Summary
This study examines how information representations support complex tasks in healthcare. Understanding these roles is crucial for designing better health information systems.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Health Systems Research
Background:
- Work practices are often understood through distributed cognition and activity systems.
- Local information representations play multifaceted roles in task accomplishment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the role of local information representations in task work within a healthcare setting.
- To characterize the medication order process in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) through the lens of distributed cognition.
Main Methods:
- Applied the theory of distributed cognition.
- Detailed the social, cognitive, organizational, and technological processes involved in task work.
- Characterized a specific portion of the medication order process in an ICU.
Main Results:
- The medication order process in the ICU has evolved to support both primary medication administration and other critical unit functions.
- Information representations serve diverse and often latent roles in accomplishing complex care delivery tasks.
Conclusions:
- System designers must consider the varied roles of information to improve designs for centralized and automated resources.
- Anticipating the impact of new systems on complex care delivery is essential for effective implementation.