Challenge si nM easuring the Impact of Interruptio no nP atient Safety and Workflo wO utcomes

Summary Objective: To examine theproblem ofstudying interruption in healthcare.Methods: Review of theinterruption litera-ture frompsychology,human-computer inter-action;experimental studies of electronic pre-scribing and errorbehaviour;observationalstudies in emergency andintensive care.Results: Primary task and interruption vari-ables whichcontribute to theoutcomes of aninterruption include thetype of task (primaryand interrupting task); point of interruption;duration of interruption; similarity of inter-ruptive task to primary task;modality of inter-ruption;environmental cues;andinterruption MethodsInf Med2011; 50: ❏–❏doi:10.3414/ME11-02-0003received: January13, 2011accepted: March23, 2011prepublished: ❏❏❏Correspondence to:Dr.Farah MagrabiSenior ResearchFellowCentre for HealthInformaticsUniversityofNew SouthWalesSydney,2052AustraliaE-mail: f.magrabi@unsw.edu.au handling strategy.Effects of interruption ontask performance canbeexaminedbymeasuring errors, thetimeontask,inter-ruption lag and resumption lag.Conclusions: Interruptions areacomplexphenomenon where multiple variables in-cluding the characteristics of primarytasks,theinterruptionsthemselves,andtheenviron-ment mayinfluencepatient safety andwork-flow outcomes.Observational studies presentsignificant challenges for recording many oftheprocess variables that influencethe ef-fects of interruptions.Controlledexperimentsprovide an opportunitytoexamine thespe-cificeffectsofvariablesonerrorsandefficien-cy.Computational modelscan be used toidentify the situations in whichinterruptionsto clinical taskscould be disruptive and toinvestigatethe aggregate effectsofinter-ruptions.Methods Inf Med 5/2011©Schattauer 2011