ABSTRACT
Health care is a significant service sector1 that relies heavily on the use of information to perform the daily work of patient care and related technical work. As part of their 1999 strategies to improve patient safety, the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 1999, pp. 177, 183) recommended improving access to accurate, timely information and making relevant information available at the point of patient care. Information displays are essential to each clinician’s performance at both the individual patient level and the unit level in an acute care facility. Because “artifacts shape cognition and collaboration,” the way that a problem is presented improves or degrades the cognitive work that a clinical care provider performs to solve it (Woods, 1998, pp. 168-169). Information displays include hard copies of notes, checklists, and status boards. They can also take the form of control/display interfaces on individual pieces of electronic equipment and assignment schedules that are shown throughout a facility on computer monitors. Displays that are suited to cognitive work at both the patient and the unit levels can improve the reliability and efficiency of clinical work and patient safety, and minimize gaps in the continuity of care (Cook, Render, & Woods, 2000).
