Identifying patient-related information problems: A study of information use by patient-care teams during morning rounds.

OBJECTIVE: This study identifies the types of patient-related information problems (PIPs) that patient-care teams encounter during morning rounds, and how those PIPs are identified and managed. PIPs are any issues related to patient information (e.g., wrong, missing, incomplete information) that affect the patient-care team's ability to perform their work. Not addressing PIPs can lead to workflow challenges, delayed patient-care decisions, and negative impacts to the patient. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We employed qualitative data collection methods by shadowing patient-care teams during 29 morning rounds resulting in 155h of observation. We observed the interactions between the rounding physicians and other patient-care team members, including: nurses, consulting physicians, care coordinators, pharmacists, social workers, and therapists. RESULTS: This study resulted in identifying seven types of PIPs that occur during morning rounds. Additionally, the study presents the different ways that participants identified and managed the PIPs. DISCUSSION: We discuss the potential negative effects of PIPs on the patient-care workflow. We also discuss socio-technical recommendations for organizational policies and training, as well as electronic health record (EHR) design improvements that could help patient-care teams more effectively identify and manage PIPs. CONCLUSION: Hospital teams rely on accurate, available, and up-to-date information in order to make informed decisions on patient care. However, PIPs exist in EHR systems, paper documents, and verbal conversations. This study identifies a set of PIPs and how they are currently being identified and managed.

Designing for privacy management in hospitals: Understanding the gap between user activities and IT staff's understandings.

PURPOSE: We examined the role of privacy in collaborative clinical work and how it is understood by hospital IT staff. The purpose of our study was to identify the gaps between hospital IT staff members' perceptions of how electronic health record (EHR) users' protect the privacy of patient information and how users actually protect patients' private information in their daily collaborative activities. Since the IT staff play an important role in implementing and maintaining the EHR, any gaps that exist between the IT staff's perceptions of user work practices and the users' actual work practices can result in a number of problems in the configuration, implementation, or customization of the EHR, which can lead to collaboration challenges, interrupted workflow, and privacy breaches. METHODS: We used qualitative data collection methods for this study. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 hospital IT staff members. We also conducted observations of EHR users in the in-patient units of the same hospital. RESULTS: We identified gaps in IT staff's understandings of users' work activities, especially in regards to privacy-compromising workarounds that are used by users and why they are used. DISCUSSION: We discuss the reasons why this gap may exist between IT staff and users and ways to improve IT staff's understanding of why users perform certain privacy-compromising workarounds. CONCLUSION: A hospital's IT staff face a daunting task in ensuring users' collaborative work practices are supported by the system while providing effective privacy mechanisms. In order to achieve both goals, the IT staff must have a clear understanding of their users' practices. However, as this study highlights, there may be a mismatch between the IT staff's understandings of how users protect patient privacy and how users actually protect privacy.

Identification and management of information problems by emergency department staff.

Patient-care teams frequently encounter information problems during their daily activities. These information problems include wrong, outdated, conflicting, incomplete, or missing information. Information problems can negatively impact the patient-care workflow, lead to misunderstandings about patient information, and potentially lead to medical errors. Existing research focuses on understanding the cause of these information problems and the impact that they can have on the hospital's workflow. However, there is limited research on how patient-care teams currently identify and manage information problems that they encounter during their work. Through qualitative observations and interviews in an emergency department (ED), we identified the types of information problems encountered by ED staff, and examined how they identified and managed the information problems. We also discuss the impact that these information problems can have on the patient-care teams, including the cascading effects of information problems on workflow and the ambiguous accountability for fixing information problems within collaborative teams.