Workflow modeling in critical care: piecing your own puzzle.

The intensive care unit (ICU) is an instance of a very dynamic health care setting where critically ill patients are being managed. It comprises of an extensive amount of communication amongst the role players, use of numerous information systems and operation of devices for monitoring and treatment purposes. The purpose of this research is to study error evolution and management within this environment. Ethnographic observation and semi-structured interview data were used to build individual pieces of the workflow dependent on the individual and the activity concerned. These pieces of the ICU workflow were used to develop a generalizable cognitive model to represent the intricate workflow in health care settings. The proposed model can be used to identify and characterize medical errors and also used for error prediction in practice.