Awareness-based scheduling in a home care clinical information system

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Organizational Behavior

Background:

• Home care involves multidisciplinary teams serving patients in their residences.
• Mobile healthcare workers have limited face-to-face interaction, hindering awareness of shared patient care activities.
• Information limitations, particularly regarding colleagues' schedules, pose significant challenges in coordinating home care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of limited awareness of others' schedules on work patterns in home care.
• To identify specific problems arising from incomplete schedule information among home care providers.
• To explore design strategies for enhancing mutual awareness of schedules in home care settings.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative analysis of work patterns influenced by schedule information limitations.
• Identification and discussion of problems stemming from incomplete schedule awareness.
• Presentation of the Mohoc point-of-care clinical information system.
• Field trial evaluation of the Mohoc system over a 2.5-month period with home care workers.

Main Results:

• Incomplete schedule information leads to various work pattern disruptions and inefficiencies in home care.
• The Mohoc system was designed to support mutual awareness of colleagues' schedules.
• The field trial provided insights into the system's effectiveness and user experience in a real-world home care environment.

Conclusions:

• Improving mutual awareness of schedules is crucial for optimizing work patterns in home care.
• Point-of-care systems like Mohoc show potential for mitigating information limitations and enhancing coordination.
• Further research and system development are needed to fully address the challenges of information sharing in mobile healthcare teams.