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Cognitive performance-altering effects of electronic medical records: an application of the human factors paradigm for patient safety

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Abstract

According to the human factors paradigm for patient safety, health care work systems and innovations such as electronic medical records do not have direct effects on patient safety. Instead, their effects are contingent on how the clinical work system, whether computerized or not, shapes health care providers’ performance of cognitive work processes. An application of the human factors paradigm to interview data from two hospitals in the Midwest United States yielded numerous examples of the performance-altering effects of electronic medical records, electronic clinical documentation, and computerized provider order entry. Findings describe both improvements and decrements in the ease and quality of cognitive performance, both for interviewed clinicians and for their colleagues and patients. Changes in cognitive performance appear to have desirable and undesirable implications for patient safety as well as for quality of care and other important outcomes. Cognitive performance can also be traced to interactions between work system elements, including new technology, allowing for the discovery of problems with “fit” to be addressed through design interventions.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks study participants and Geoffrey Priest, Christine Baker, and Bradley Schmidt. Three anonymous reviewers provided many helpful suggestions. This research was completed as part of a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Ben-Tzion Karsh. RJH was supported by a pre-doctoral training grant from the National Institutes of Health (1 TL1 RR025013-01) and a post-doctoral training grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (5 T32 HS000083-11).

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  1. School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Richard J. Holden

  2. Division of Ergonomics, School of Technology and Health, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Richard J. Holden

  3. Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1550 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Richard J. Holden

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Holden, R.J. Cognitive performance-altering effects of electronic medical records: an application of the human factors paradigm for patient safety. Cogn Tech Work 13, 11–29 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-010-0141-8

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