With growth in consumer health technologies, patients and caregivers have become increasingly involved in their health and medical care. Such health-related engagement often occurs at home. Pregnancy ...is a common condition and, for many women, their first exposure to health management practices. This study examined how pregnant women and caregivers managed health in their homes. Participants completed sociodemographic surveys and semi-structured interviews about living situation, information needs, and technology use. Using an iterative, inductive coding approach, we identified themes about health management, including the physical home, help at home, community, the virtual home, and biggest concerns. Most expectant mothers encountered everyday problems with mobility and household management. Pregnant women desired more assistance from caregivers, who often did not know how to help. Caregivers who provided help took on new roles. Many expectant families did not trust advice found online. Over half of expectant families had biggest concerns that involved the home.
Chronic pain leads to reduced quality of life for patients, and strains health systems worldwide. In the US and some other countries, the complexities of caring for chronic pain are exacerbated by ...individual and public health risks associated with commonly used opioid analgesics. To help understand and improve pain care, this article uses the data frame theory of sensemaking to explore how primary care clinicians in the US manage their patients with chronic noncancer pain. We conducted Critical Decision Method interviews with ten primary care clinicians about 30 individual patients with chronic pain. In these interviews, we identified several patients, social/environmental, and clinician factors that influence the frames clinicians use to assess their patients and determine a pain management plan. Findings suggest significant ambiguity and uncertainty in clinical pain management decision making. Therefore, interventions to improve pain care might focus on supporting sensemaking in the context of clinical evidence rather than attempting to provide clinicians with decontextualized and/or algorithm-based decision rules. Interventions might focus on delivering convenient and easily interpreted patient and social/environmental information in the context of clinical practice guidelines.
Morbidity and mortality due to preventable medical errors are a disastrous reality in medicine. Debriefing, a process that allows individuals to discuss team performance in a constructive, supportive ...environment, has been linked to improved performance in various medical and surgical fields, including improvements in specific procedures, teamwork and communication, and error identification. However, the neurosurgical literature on this topic is limited. The authors review the debriefing literature in the field of medicine, with a specific emphasis on the operating room, and they report their own institutional experience with a debriefing module, from invention to pilot implementation, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The authors share the challenges and lessons learned from their quality improvement project. The field of neurosurgery would undoubtedly benefit from embracing debriefing, as its potential has been established in other medical specialties and can serve as a valuable role in immediately learning from mistakes. The authors hope that their colleagues can learn from this experience and improve their own.
Background Despite evidence that use of a checklist during the pre-incision time out improves patient morbidity and mortality, compliance with performing the required elements of the checklist has ...been low. In an effort to improve compliance, a standardized time out interactive Electronic Checklist System iECS was implemented in all hospital operating room (OR) suites at 1 institution. The purpose of this 12-month prospective observational study was to assess whether an iECS in the OR improves and sustains improved surgical team compliance with the pre-incision time out. Methods Direct observational analyses of preprocedural time outs were performed on 80 cases 1 month before, and 1 and 9 months after implementation of the iECS, for a total of 240 observed cases. Three observers, who achieved high interrater reliability (kappa = 0.83), recorded a compliance score (yes, 1; no, 0) on each element of the time out. An element was scored as compliant if it was clearly verbalized by the surgical team. Results Pre-intervention observations indicated that surgical staff verbally communicated the core elements of the time out procedure 49.7 ± 12.9% of the time. After implementation of the iECS, direct observation of 80 surgical cases at 1 and 9 months indicated that surgical staff verbally communicated the core elements of the time out procedure 81.6 ± 11.4% and 85.8 ± 6.8% of the time, respectively, resulting in a statistically significant ( P < .0001) increase in time out procedural compliance. Conclusion Implementation of a standardized, iECS can dramatically increase compliance with preprocedural time outs in the OR, an important and necessary step in improving patient outcomes and reducing preventable complications and deaths.
Abstract
Objectives
To build effective applications, technology designers must understand consumer health needs. Pregnancy is a common health condition, and expectant families have unanswered ...questions. This study examined consumer health-related needs in pregnant women and caregivers and determined the types of needs that were not met.
Materials and Methods
We enrolled pregnant women <36 weeks' gestational age and caregivers from advanced maternal-fetal and group prenatal care settings. Participant characteristics were collected through surveys, and health-related needs were elicited in semi-structured interviews. Researchers categorized needs by semantic type and whether they were met (ie, met, partially met, or unmet). Inter-rater reliability was measured by Cohen's kappa.
Results
Seventy-one pregnant women and 29 caregivers participated and reported 1054 needs, 28% unmet, and 49% partially met. Need types were 66.2% informational, 15.9% logistical, 8.9% social, 8.6% medical, and 0.3% other. Inter-rater reliability was near perfect (κ=0.95, P < 0.001).
Discussion
Common topics of unmet needs were prognosis, life management, and need for emotional support. For pregnant women, these unmet needs focused around being healthy, childbirth, infant care, and being a good mother; caregivers' needs involved caring for the mother, the natural course of pregnancy, and life after pregnancy.
Conclusion
Pregnant women and caregivers have a rich set of health-related needs with many not fully met. Caregivers' needs differed from those of pregnant women and may not be adequately addressed by resources designed for mothers. Many unmet needs involved stress and life management. Knowledge about consumer health needs can inform the design of better technologies for pregnancy.
Background
Electronic health record (EHR) system transitions are challenging for healthcare organizations. High-volume, safety–critical tasks like barcode medication administration (BCMA) should be ...evaluated, yet standards for ensuring safety during transition have not been established.
Objective
Identify risks in common and problem-prone medication tasks to inform safe transition between BCMA systems and establish benchmarks for future system changes.
Design
Staff nurses completed simulation-based usability testing in the legacy system (R1) and new system pre- (R2) and post-go-live (R3). Tasks included (1) Hold/Administer, (2) IV Fluids, (3) PRN Pain, (4) Insulin, (5) Downtime/PRN, and (6) Messaging. Audiovisual recordings of task performance were systematically analyzed for time, navigation, and errors. The System Usability Scale measured perceived usability and satisfaction. Post-simulation interviews captured nurses’ qualitative comments and perceptions of the systems.
Participants
Fifteen staff nurses completed 2–3-h simulation sessions. Eleven completed both R1 and R2, and seven completed all three rounds. Clinical experience ranged from novice (< 1 year) to experienced (> 10 years). Practice settings included adult and pediatric patient populations in ICU, stepdown, and acute care departments.
Main Measures
Task completion rates/times, safety and non-safety-related use errors (interaction difficulties), and user satisfaction.
Key Results
Overall success rates remained relatively stable in all tasks except two: IV Fluids task success increased substantially (R1: 17%, R2: 54%, R3: 100%) and Downtime/PRN task success decreased (R1: 92%, R2: 64%, R3: 22%). Among the seven nurses who completed all rounds, overall safety-related errors decreased 53% from R1 to R3 and 50% from R2 to R3, and average task times for successfully completed tasks decreased 22% from R1 to R3 and 38% from R2 to R3.
Conclusions
Usability testing is a reasonable approach to compare different BCMA tasks to anticipate transition problems and establish benchmarks with which to monitor and evaluate system changes going forward.
Highlights • Research associated CDSS has increased but little of it is high quality qualitative research. • Lack of qualitative research suggests that understanding about CDSS is also lacking. • ...Most CDSS applications involved alerts and reminders associated with well-defined, criterion-based processes. • The majority of CDSS applications involved outpatient settings clinical decision making in inpatient lacking. • Future directions unintended adaptation to CDSS; clinicians extract meaning from.
Public interest in the quality and safety of health care has spurred examination of specific organizational routines believed to yield risk in health care work. Medication administration routines, in ...particular, have been the subject of numerous improvement projects involving information technology development, and other forms of research and regulation. This study draws from ethnographic observation to examine how the common routine of medication administration intersects with other organizational routines, and why understanding such intersections is important. We present three cases describing intersections between medication administration and other routines, including a pharmacy routine, medication administration on the next shift and management reporting. We found that each intersection had ostensive and performative dimensions; and furthermore, that IT-enabled changes to one routine led to unintended consequences in its intersection with others, resulting in misalignment of ostensive and performative aspects of the intersection. Our analysis focused on the activities of a group of nurses who provide technology use mediation (TUM) before and after the rollout of a new health IT system. This research offers new insights on the intersection of organizational routines, demonstrates the value of analyzing TUM activities to better understand the relationship between IT introduction and changes in routines, and has practical implications for the implementation of technology in complex practice settings.
We examined the influence of 4 different risk information formats on inpatient nurses' preferences and decisions with an acute clinical deterioration decision-support system.
We conducted a ...comparative usability evaluation in which participants provided responses to multiple user interface options in a simulated setting. We collected qualitative data using think aloud methods. We collected quantitative data by asking participants which action they would perform after each time point in 3 different patient scenarios.
More participants (n = 6) preferred the probability format over relative risk ratios (n = 2), absolute differences (n = 2), and number of persons out of 100 (n = 0). Participants liked average lines, having a trend graph to supplement the risk estimate, and consistent colors between trend graphs and possible actions. Participants did not like too much text information or the presence of confidence intervals. From a decision-making perspective, use of the probability format was associated with greater concordance in actions taken by participants compared to the other 3 risk information formats.
By focusing on nurses' preferences and decisions with several risk information display formats and collecting both qualitative and quantitative data, we have provided meaningful insights for the design of clinical decision-support systems containing complex quantitative information.
This study adds to our knowledge of presenting risk information to nurses within clinical decision-support systems. We encourage those developing risk-based systems for inpatient nurses to consider expressing risk in a probability format and include a graph (with average line) to display the patient's recent trends.
OBJECTIVES: Prehospital electrocardiogram (ECG) and administration of aspirin are evidence-based strategies for patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). However, emergency medical services (EMS) ...compliance in patients with suspected ACS varies widely. We sought to understand the barriers to prehospital ECG acquisition and aspirin administration for patients with suspected ACS.METHODS: In this qualitative study, we interviewed EMS clinicians at three geographically-diverse United States (U.S.)-based EMS agencies. We interviewed practicing clinicians and quality and operations leaders at these agencies. Based on the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework, interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a grounded qualitative approach with open coding. The Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) framework and a constant comparison technique were used to identify and refine themes.RESULTS: Twenty-five paramedics and 20 additional agency personnel participated. Median age was 41 (IQR: 34-51) years and 13 (29%) were female. Themes were organized using SEIPS and longitudinally through four phases of an EMS call. During the pre-arrival phase, staffing challenges, training quality, and dispatch may anchor EMS clinicians on a diagnosis. During the diagnosis and treatment phase, safety and communication barriers may take priority over care delivery. Additionally, EMS clinicians must allocate assets (e.g., whether to send an advanced life support unit) and financial resources; veteran EMS clinicians identified their experience whereas newer clinicians cited their recent education when making these decisions. Also, diagnostic uncertainty due to increasing patient complexity and atypical presentations contributed to diagnostic error. During the response and transport phase, scope of practice limits use and interpretation of the ECG, with clinicians reporting that liberal use of ECG led to more rapid decision-making. Finally, in the after phase, personnel reported the "psychologically taxing" nature of the job contributing to biases, bad habits, and burnout. Performance feedback was desired for personal development, though currently perceived as infrequent and punitive.CONCLUSIONS: Multiple, interrelated themes underscored the complexities of delivering evidence-based care to prehospital patients with ACS. Education in ECG interpretation, resource allocation, and bias, and enhancing feedback may serve as strategies to address the identified barriers.OBJECTIVES: Prehospital electrocardiogram (ECG) and administration of aspirin are evidence-based strategies for patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). However, emergency medical services (EMS) compliance in patients with suspected ACS varies widely. We sought to understand the barriers to prehospital ECG acquisition and aspirin administration for patients with suspected ACS.METHODS: In this qualitative study, we interviewed EMS clinicians at three geographically-diverse United States (U.S.)-based EMS agencies. We interviewed practicing clinicians and quality and operations leaders at these agencies. Based on the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework, interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a grounded qualitative approach with open coding. The Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) framework and a constant comparison technique were used to identify and refine themes.RESULTS: Twenty-five paramedics and 20 additional agency personnel participated. Median age was 41 (IQR: 34-51) years and 13 (29%) were female. Themes were organized using SEIPS and longitudinally through four phases of an EMS call. During the pre-arrival phase, staffing challenges, training quality, and dispatch may anchor EMS clinicians on a diagnosis. During the diagnosis and treatment phase, safety and communication barriers may take priority over care delivery. Additionally, EMS clinicians must allocate assets (e.g., whether to send an advanced life support unit) and financial resources; veteran EMS clinicians identified their experience whereas newer clinicians cited their recent education when making these decisions. Also, diagnostic uncertainty due to increasing patient complexity and atypical presentations contributed to diagnostic error. During the response and transport phase, scope of practice limits use and interpretation of the ECG, with clinicians reporting that liberal use of ECG led to more rapid decision-making. Finally, in the after phase, personnel reported the "psychologically taxing" nature of the job contributing to biases, bad habits, and burnout. Performance feedback was desired for personal development, though currently perceived as infrequent and punitive.CONCLUSIONS: Multiple, interrelated themes underscored the complexities of delivering evidence-based care to prehospital patients with ACS. Education in ECG interpretation, resource allocation, and bias, and enhancing feedback may serve as strategies to address the identified barriers.
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