Exploring HCI-issues within error- sensitive intensive healthcare systems : An Ethnographic case study

Abstract: People are used to working routines that are taught and transferred from one to another, routines such as how to interact with an information system and how to use it in a specific context. While user experience and usability have been two issues of interest within the field of HCI, there is a lack of research exploring usage and behavior while interacting with complex error-sensitive systems, in so much as an action that couldn’t be undone once performed. This thesis explores the error-sensitive aspects of complexity within interactions of the administering of medical prescription activities at an intensive healthcare unit. The aim is to investigate the interactions of computer-supported cooperative work environments used for information transformation activities for medical prescriptions. The results reveal a number of HCI-related issues in which clinicians socially bypass system interactions by making incomplete data inputs while assuming a given level of understanding of other employees.