Enhancing Prehospital Decision-Making: Exploring User Needs and Design Considerations for Clinical Decision Support...

Area of Science:

• Emergency Medicine
• Health Informatics
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Prehospital emergency care providers face decision-making challenges due to limited cognitive support and high-stress environments.
• Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) can help but often cause workflow disruptions and usability issues in practice.
• Designing effective CDSS requires understanding prehospital provider needs and unique workflow characteristics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the decision-making challenges faced by prehospital providers.
• To identify technological needs for effective decision support in prehospital settings.
• To gather design considerations for CDSS that integrate seamlessly into prehospital workflows.

Main Methods:

• Conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 prehospital providers from four urban EMS agencies.
• Focused interviews on decision-making challenges, technological needs, and CDSS design/implementation.
• Analyzed interview data using content analysis to identify common themes.

Main Results:

• Identified challenges: limited diagnostic tools, insufficient experience, and lack of cognitive support.
• Highlighted desired CDSS features: automatic prompts, critical event alerts, AI medication ID, voice command retrieval.
• Emphasized considerations: alert prioritization, real-time data collection, trust, and accountability.

Conclusions:

• The study provides empirical insights into prehospital provider challenges.
• Offers design recommendations for developing CDSS solutions aligned with prehospital workflows.