Year-end Sale % OFF 
Abstract
The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is a complex and technologically advanced healthcare setting. Technologies enable continuous monitoring through patient signals that are sensed, recorded and displayed at the bedside. Although such technologies have significantly decreased mortality rates in the ICU, the large amounts of data have contributed to clinician information overload. Critical care nurses spend more than half of their time scanning and assimilating information from disparate monitors, at the bedside to assess the patient status. Software that integrates and allows visualization of large data sets on a single screen are now available. In the present study, we evaluated software entitled T3™ (Tracking, Trajectory and Triggering). Such computationally powerful software has great potential to support nurses’ monitoring and decision-making tasks but the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of the software are key to end-user adoption. As such, we conducted a Heuristic Evaluation, where the study’s evaluators interacted with the software interfaces and were asked to comment on it by describing the usability issues and if they were in compliance with established usability principles, or heuristics, specifically for medical device interfaces. A total of 50 usability issues associated with 194 heuristic violations were found. Identified issues included difficulty with choosing the time period of the patient data signals, distinguishing between several patient signals and appearance of patient values which were imperceptible to evaluators; both issues could lead nurses to misinterpret the timing and/or the physiological status of the patient (e.g., time of shock and exact value of vitals). Heuristic evaluation, an efficient and inexpensive method, was successfully applied to the T3™ software to identify usability problems that if left unresolved could lead to patient safety issues. These findings may have broad implications for the design of the T3™ and other continuous monitoring systems.
Highlights
IntroductionIntensive care units (ICUs) are settings where close monitoring and interventions aimed at achieving homeostasis (i.e. stable vitals within target ranges) are performed on the most fragile patients
Intensive care units (ICUs) are settings where close monitoring and interventions aimed at achieving homeostasis are performed on the most fragile patients
We evaluated software entitled “T3TM”, which stands for “Tracking, Trajectory and Triggering” and which has been implemented in several North American intensive care units
Summary
Intensive care units (ICUs) are settings where close monitoring and interventions aimed at achieving homeostasis (i.e. stable vitals within target ranges) are performed on the most fragile patients. The complexity of a pediatric patient’s underlying condition is exacerbated by their rapidly evolving developmental physiology [1]. Target ranges for a basic vital such as heart rate is highly dependent on age [2]. Long-term monitoring of the critically-ill, pediatric patient is a signature feature of the intensive care unit, and is often associated with the heavy use of monitoring technologies, which collectively, generate large quantities of data[3]. The negative effects of the technology-intense ICU environment may hinder nurses’ ability to monitor and signal changes in critically ill patients
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
