Colloquium - Sarcevic

Despite growing use of advanced technologies in healthcare, trauma resuscitation -- the critical, fast-paced, initial evaluation and treatment of trauma patients in the emergency room -- remains one of the few settings that lack IT support and depend on paper artifacts. Several attempts have been made to introduce computerized support in this domain, but have not yet yielded feasible solutions. In this talk, I will present findings from a study conducted in a pediatric trauma center to inform the design of the TraumaPen system -- a mixed paper-digital interface using digital pen and a wall display -- for supporting documentation and situational awareness during trauma resuscitation. I will describe the field research that informed the system design, the reaction of the trauma team to the system, and findings from two simulation sessions in which the system was deployed and evaluated. Although the evaluation results showed the potential for digital pen technology in supporting documentation and situational awareness, they also revealed several limitations of this technology in the dynamic and safety-critical setting of the trauma bay. I will conclude by discussing issues relevant to the use of paper-digital interfaces for assisting fast-paced, dynamic work processes such as trauma resuscitation. This work was done is collaboration with our colleagues from University of California, San Diego, Dr. Nadir Weibel and Dr. James Hollan.

Dr. Aleksandra Sarcevic is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the School of Communication and Information (SC&I) at Rutgers University. Dr. Sarcevic's research interests lie in the areas of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), human-computer interaction (HCI), and medical informatics. She received her PhD from Rutgers University in October 2009. Her dissertation, advised by Dr. Michael Lesk, examined collaboration and communication practices of trauma teams during trauma resuscitation. She continues to work on this topic as a Co-PI on an NSF funded project that aims to derive and evaluate system requirements for technological support to reduce errors and increase efficiency during trauma resuscitation. Dr. Sarcevic is spending this academic year at University of Colorado at Boulder as a Visiting Assistant Professor, where she works with Dr. Leysia Palen and her crisis-informatics research group.