Decision making tasks in time-critical medical settings

Abstract

We examine decision-making tasks and information sources during fast-paced, high-risk medical events, such as trauma resuscitation. Interviews with surgical team leaders and ED physicians reveal several environmental aspects that make decision making difficult, including diagnostic tradeoffs, missing and unreliable information, and managing multiple patients simultaneously. We discuss the implications of these findings for the design of wall displays to support decision making in timecritical medical settings.

Information seeking, use, and decision making

“…The NDM approach argues experience helps decision makers to make a decision, as it acts as a source of information (e.g., Klein, ) by recognizing patterns to fill information gaps. Saracevic, Zhang, and Kusunoki () also suggested that by enabling comparison with past similar cases, information technology can facilitate decision making during fast‐paced medical events. Finkelstein, Whitehead, and Campbell (), however, warned that people “are at risk of making poor decisions when they have enough experience to believe” [that they are right] (p. 27).…”

Applications and User Perceptions of Smart Glasses in Emergency Medical Services: Semistructured Interview Study

“…Another study designed and evaluated a smartphone app to facilitate care documentation in the field by enabling EMS providers to photograph the patient, record digital audio notes, and capture the view of the incident [6]. Despite their beneficial features, these handheld devices could cause problems in real-time use because (1) handheld devices are prone to interfere with manual tasks in a busy EMS environment [7][8][9][10][11] and (2) the physical handling of these devices could increase the chance of cross-contamination and patient infections [12]. As such, the need for novel technologies to support hands-busy EMS operations is evident [2,13].…”

“…The primary goal of prehospital care is to stabilize patients by quickly addressing severe illnesses or life-threatening injuries. Perhaps prehospital care is among the most challenging medical domains in the provision of care to patients owing to various reasons, such as the broad range of clinical situations, limited resources and time, difficulties in accessing remote experts, and the highly dynamic situations and environmental conditions that providers encounter [ 1 , 2 ]. Owing to such challenges, technology support could be useful for EMS providers to facilitate decision-making and information management [ 3 , 4 ].…”