Transitioning Cognitive Aids into Decision Support Platforms: Requirements and Design Guidelines

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Clinical Decision Support
• Medical Informatics

Background:

• Digital cognitive aids offer potential for clinical decision support, including alerts for process delays and intervention recommendations.
• Effective implementation requires timely, accurate data entry and standardized documentation of task status.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine how a digital checklist for pediatric trauma resuscitation can trigger decision support alerts and recommendations.
• To identify essential criteria for cognitive aids to effectively support alerts and recommendations.

Main Methods:

• A mixed-methods study involving co-design sessions and near-live simulations.
• Development of two checklist features: a pre-hospital information form and a multi-step task progress slider.
• In-the-wild evaluation of the developed features.

Main Results:

• Two key criteria for effective cognitive aids were identified: timely/accurate data entry and accurate task status documentation.
• Novel checklist features were created and evaluated to meet these criteria.
• Guidelines for designing cognitive aid features in time- and safety-critical scenarios were developed.

Conclusions:

• Digital cognitive aids, when designed with specific features, can enhance clinical decision support in pediatric trauma resuscitation.
• The developed features and guidelines contribute to improving the usability and effectiveness of digital tools in critical care.
• Future research should focus on the broader implementation and impact of such aids in emergency medicine.