Investigating Guiding Attributes in Visual Search for Medication Vials

Abstract

Medical professionals must select from a vast array of medication vials to dispense the correct medication to a patient. The vials are often small and highly similar, potentially increasing the chance of committing a medical error. Over 400,000 people die every year due to medical errors according to recent studies; a third of which are thought to be medication related. We studied the visual characteristics of medication vial labels to identify properties leading to the fastest and most accurate search. In a visual search task, participants located a target vial among an array of similar looking vials whose labels varied along a set of specific attributes (color density, text size, and text orientation). Response time and accuracy data indicate that participants were faster and more accurate at finding vials with high color density and vertical text orientation, with the exception that when the text was large, there was no significant difference between these factors. Our research indicates that guiding attributes previously identified in basic visual search studies do in fact predict performance in search for medication vials.