Quid Pro Quod: Enhancing Patient Safety Via Minimizing Human-Computer Interactions Errors

Abstract

The present describes an initial research project aiming at enhancing pa- tient safety. The overall goal is to minimize human-computer interactions errors that may occur via the use of Medical Information Systems (MIS) in health care units. The main idea is to extend the approach on design of usability and safety issues of generic medical devices, or safety critical systems design, to the problem domain of patient safety in the design of MIS. An understanding of errors and patient safety issues is presented and how these issues contribute to interaction errors in MIS. A plan of the research programm and related questions is presented. Is is expected that the outcome of a case study will be used for testing an evaluation framework, in development, that will take into account a rapid method for improving these aspects regarding the software development process.