Work system barriers and facilitators of a team health information technology

Designing health IT aimed at supporting team-based care and improving patient safety is difficult. This requires a work system (i.e., SEIPS) evaluation of the technology by care team members. This study aimed to identify work system barriers and facilitators to the use of a team health IT that supports care transitions for pediatric trauma patients. We conducted an analysis on 36 interviews - representing 12 roles - collected from a scenario-based evaluation of T³. We identified eight dimensions with both barriers and facilitators in all five work system elements: person (experience), task (task performance, workload/efficiency), technology (usability, specific features of T³), environment (space, location), and organization (communication/coordination). Designing technology that meets every role's needs is challenging; in particular, when trade-offs need to be managed, e.g., additional workload for one role or divergent perspectives regarding specific features. Our results confirm the usefulness of a continuous work system approach to technology design and implementation.