Abstract
This study investigated the challenges faced by care givers in using patient monitoring systems, specifically focusing on the needs for automation support in patient monitoring tasks. User interactions with monitors in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit were studied through field observation, interviews, and cognitive task analysis. Results show that physicians are primarily interested in the patient health trends and progress, while the nurses prefer more routine operating abilities. Based on these results, two automation aids were developed in support of (1) CRG (cardiorespirography) trends retrieval (an information integration task), and (2) alarm limits adjusting (a decision making task). Future studies will involve evaluation and refinement of the designs through both heuristic evaluation and simulation experiments to further improve the monitor’s functions. This work has implications on the design of patient monitoring systems in intensive care units as well as other medical environments.
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