Cognitive Work Analysis Models of Neuro-Critical Care

Abstract

Neuro-critical care is a complex environment where clinicians have to deal with a great variety and amount of data on a daily basis. The different types of medical equipment and software often pose challenges to clinicians as they are separate systems and lack long data storage which is necessary to trend patient health over time. An observational study has been conducted, followed by the first step of a Cognitive Work Analysis approach to understand and visualize key components of this field in more depth. This so-called Work Domain Analysis shows findings for relations between the different abstract levels of neuro-critical care monitoring and treatment, as well as the nervous system and cognition. The abstract representation shapes the basis of designing an Ecological Interface.