A Comparison of Manual and Electronic Status Boards in the Emergency Department: What's Gained and What's Lost?

Abstract

Emergency departments (EDs) are complex, high tempo, high risk work environments that require dynamic sharing of information across a group of caregivers. EDs commonly use status boards as tools to facilitate this sharing. Manual status boards have been replaced in some institutions by electronic ones, for a variety of reasons. We contrast the use of manual and electronic status boards in 4 different EDs to assess the gains and losses for workers.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Mackay

W. E.

(1999). Is paper safer? The role of paper flight strips in air traffic control. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 6(4), 311–340.

Nemuth

Klock

P. A.

Daves

Cook

R. I.

(2002, September 2002). A study of how cognitive artifacts affect distributed cognition in operating room management. Retrieved 12 December 2003, from http://www.ctlab.org/properties/pdf%20files/ASA%20Abstract%209.02.pdf.

Plasters

C. F.

Seagull

Xiao

(2003). Coordination challenges in operating room management: an in-depth field study. Retrieved 7 June 2003, from http://hfrp.umm.edu/Papers/2003/AMIA%20paper%20Wednesdav%20v7.pdf.

Rochlin

G. I.

(1997). Trapped in the Net: The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.