Identification of tele-ICU system requirements using a content validity assessment

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Intensive Care Medicine
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Telemedicine in intensive care (tele-ICU) leverages information technology to extend critical care expertise to remote locations.
• Early clinician involvement in tele-ICU system design is essential for ensuring user acceptance and system usability.
• Understanding the functional priorities of end-users is key to developing effective tele-ICU solutions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and rank essential functions for a tele-ICU system from the perspective of clinicians unfamiliar with such technology.
• To gather input for the pre-implementation design phase of tele-ICU systems.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional, prospective, two-round survey was administered to European intensive care professionals new to tele-ICU.
• Content validity was assessed using item-level content validity indexes (I-CVI), with a threshold of 0.75 for relevance.
• Functionality rankings were analyzed using weighted ranking points (WRP).

Main Results:

• Thirty-six functional specifications were deemed relevant (I-CVI > 0.75) from an initial 50 items.
• Key identified functions included comprehensive online patient data access, risk and alarm management, audio-visual consultation and monitoring capabilities, and information security.
• The highest-ranked functions were real-time monitoring, alarms, audio-visual connections, and data security.

Conclusions:

• Clinicians without prior tele-ICU experience identified comprehensive patient data access, robust alarm systems, stringent data security, and reliable audio-visual communication as paramount for tele-ICU systems.
• These prioritized functions should be central to the design and development of tele-ICU systems during the pre-implementation phase.