Emergency department status boards: user-evolved artefacts for inter- and intra-group coordination

  • Authors:

  • Robert L. Wears;Shawna J. Perry;Stephanie Wilson;Julia Galliers;James Fone

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Florida/Imperial College London, 655 W 8th St., 32209, Jacksonville, FL, USA;University of Florida/Imperial College London, 655 W 8th St., 32209, Jacksonville, FL, USA;City University, Centre for HCI Design, Northampton Square, EC1V 0HB, London, FL, UK;City University, Centre for HCI Design, Northampton Square, EC1V 0HB, London, FL, UK;City University, Centre for HCI Design, Northampton Square, EC1V 0HB, London, FL, UK

  • Venue:
  • Cognition, Technology and Work
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

Large, easily viewed status boards are commonly used in some healthcare settings such as emergency departments, operating theaters, intensive care units, and inpatient wards. Because these artefacts were developed by front-line users, and have little to no supervisory or regulatory control, they offer valuable insights into the theories of work and hazard held by those users. Although the status boards case were locally developed over many years for within-group coordination, they have also become useful for between-group coordination across organizational boundaries. In this paper, we compare and contrast the use of such status boards in two disparate settings: a US emergency department, and a UK pediatric ward, and note striking similarities in their form and usage, despite the large differences in setting.