JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Current anesthesia workspaces consist of several technical devices such as patient monitor, anesthesia machine, among others. Commonly, they stem from different manufactures, thus they differ in term of their modus operandi, user interface and representation of alarms. Merging the information of these devices using a single joint protocol and displaying it in a single graphical user interface could lead to a general improvement in perioperative management.

Objective:

This paper aims at developing and afterwards evaluating an Anesthesia Workstation (ANWS) functional model in terms of usability, fulfillment of clinical requirements and expected improvements in patient safety.

Methods:

To compare the self-developed ANWS with the conventional system, a pilot observational study was conducted at the University Hospital Aachen (Aachen, Germany). Five anesthesiologists were asked to perform different tasks using firstly the ANWS and thereafter the conventional setup. For evaluation purposes, inter alia response times were measured and an interaction-centered usability test with an eye tracking system was carried out. Finally, the subjects were requested to fill in a questionnaire in order to measure the user satisfaction.

Results:

Response times were significantly higher when using the ANWS, but decreased considerably after one repetition. Furthermore, usability was rated as excellent (95) according to the SUS (systematic usability scale) score, and the majority of clinical requirements were met.

Conclusions:

In general, the results were highly encouraging considering that the ANWS is only a functional model as well as the lack of training of the participants. However, further studies are necessary to improve the universal user interface and the interplay of the various networked devices.