Supporting coordination in surgical suites: physical aspects of common information spaces

  • Authors:

  • Peter G. Scupelli;Yan Xiao;Susan R. Fussell;Sara Kiesler;Mark D. Gross

  • Affiliations:

  • Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA;Baylor Health Care System, Dallas, TX, USA;Cornell University , Ithaca, NY, USA;Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA;Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

To accommodate frequent emergencies, interruptions, and delays, hospital staff continually make and coordinate changes to the surgery schedule. The technical and social aspects of coordination in surgical suites have been described by prior studies. This paper addresses an understudied aspect of coordination: the physical environment. Based on a field study of four surgical suites in two large academic centers, we show how the physical layout of hallways and rooms, and barriers and spaces around displays and key coordinators, support or fail to support the common information spaces used for coordination. We use the concept "information hotspots" to represent how physical places and their characteristics facilitate coordination. We developed design principles based on the concept of information hotspots that should guide architectural considerations for coordination in dynamic environments such as hospitals.