Interruptions in emergency department work: an observational and interview study

Abstract

Clinicians were exposed to interruptions most often during information exchange. Relative to its occurrence, preparation of medication was the most common activity to be interrupted, which might increase risk for errors. Interruptions seemed to be perceived as something negative when related to disturbed work processes.

Reasons for interrupting colleagues during emergency department work – A qualitative study

“…Because clinicians are not fully aware of each other's ongoing tasks, interruptions may occur even during assignments that demand focus and concentration e.g., during preparation of medication or when discussing a patient's treatment plan with a colleague (Berg et al, 2013). Interruptions that occur during these kinds of assignments are often perceived as disturbing by the recipients (Berg et al, 2016).…”

“…Further, several care processes for individual patients with different levels of priority occur simultaneously within each flow process and not all team members are concurrently involved in the same care procedures. Yet, team members often need to interact with each other, causing them to expose one another to numerous interruptions (Berg et al, 2013;Coiera et al, 2002;Kosits & Jones, 2011). The definition of interruption used in this paper is derived from a concept analysis of this phenomenon:…”

What the work of nurses really looks like: Identifying factors influencing the work of nurses in hospital

“…Nurses are extremely accessible at all times, most often attending to interruptions immediately, as they and their co-workers seem to consider interruptions as "normal" at any time and under any circumstances [13,16,33].…”

How do interruptions affect clinician performance in healthcare? Negotiating fidelity, control, and potential generalizability in the search for answers

“…They can have an ethnographic motivation (Colligan & Bass, 2012;Rivera, 2014), they can be focused on identifying and classifying activity (Berg et al, 2013;Trbovich et al, 2013;Weigl, Müller, Zupanc, Glaser, & Angerer, 2011;Westbrook, Woods, Rob, Dunsmuir, & Day, 2010) or they can require clinicians to keep a diary (Baethge & Rigotti, 2013). A frequent motivation underlying field studies has been to identify the burden that interruptions and distractions impose on clinicians by collecting information on how often and under what conditions they occur.…”