Fields of promoted actions for facilitating multitasking activity during a medical emergency

An adverse clinical event requires emergency team coordination and multitasking activity. Based on studies in ecological psychology, we propose that a structured ambient environment can implicitly facilitate these requirements.

We designed a new configuration of work in which spatial zones were specified as fields of promoted actions for doctors, nurses and nursing auxiliaries. 6 emergency teams were confronted with scenarios in a simulation setting, either with a traditional configuration of work or with the new configuration.

Significantly, each kind of caregiver respected the delimited spatial zones: 91.5% of occupation time for doctors, 97.1% for nurses and 95.3% for nursing auxiliaries. The mean durations of occupation of a same zone by the nursing auxiliaries and another caregiver decreased significantly, thus reducing the likelihood of mutual disturbance. Readiness for multitasking activity measured before and after experiencing the work configuration increased significantly among caregivers. An ergonomic evaluation scale showed a high level of satisfaction among caregivers (68.5 points out of 100). Participants also indicated the advantages and disadvantages of this new work configuration.

This study is a first step towards recommendations to standardise the positioning of emergency team members and for a new spatial arrangement of equipment.