Human Factors Researchers Study Emergency Department Protocol
ISE faculty are working to investigate and analyze emerging technology for patient tracking in hospital Emergency Departments (EDs). Tracking systems are essential to the efficiency and safety of patients in emergency care. The “white boards”—usually dry erase boards with grids to organize patient information, written by hand—provide clinical and logistical information about patients and provide their caregivers with information about patient status (designated providers, laboratory results, location, etc). Hospitals are beginning to make the transition from the traditional “white boards” to electronic systems.
By creating a simulation of the proposed electronic system, this research team will have the opportunity to identify potential problems and address them before the technology is implemented in a real-world emergency department, with real patients depending on its accuracy and efficiency.
In an exciting departure from more conventional simulations in the health-care arena (for example, mannequin patients for anesthesia training), this project will use an immersive laboratory environment to study the ways that the caregivers themselves interact with patient tracking systems. In other words, this study will take into account and specifically analyze how the people who use and depend on these systems everyday actually do use them, and how the new technology can be implemented in a way that will make sense from their point of view.
The simulation will include patient tracking displays and interfaces on multiple computer screens and large screen displays, in a setting that allows the subjects (actual ED caregivers) to interact with the simulated tracking system, representative clinical tasks, and other people. The information displayed will be drawn from a real-time, interactive, and discrete event simulation of an ED environment; participant awareness, decisions, and actions will be measured over the course of two experiments.
