From the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa.
Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Israel Institute of Technology.
Pediatr Emerg Care. 2022 Jan 1;38(1):e343-e348. doi: 10.1097/PEC.0000000000002280.
Children are more vulnerable to medication errors during prehospital care because of paramedic staff having less experience with pediatric patients. One of the possible solutions to this problem is the use of technologies as cognitive aids to medication dosage calculation.
Design and empirically test a graphic dosage calculator tailored for pediatric medication calculation in prehospital emergency care.
The design and development of the calculator followed an iterative user-centered design process. Fourteen novice and 16 experienced paramedics participated in the empirical test of the graphic calculator by running 3 pediatric medication scenarios with both the graphic calculator and a pocket handbook used currently to aid calculations.
It took significantly less time to complete the scenarios with the graphic calculator compared with the handbook. Both novice and experienced paramedics expressed similar levels of confidence with using the graphic calculator. Participants expressed a strong preference for the graphic calculator. Finally, the graphic calculator was scored significantly above a standard usability benchmark.
The results show that the graphic calculator was usable, more effective, efficient, and preferred compared with the current dosage calculation method. Technologies such as the graphic calculator designed and tested in this study can help not only with the rare cases, such as pediatrics, but might also mitigate skill decay.
由于护理人员对儿科患者的经验较少，儿童在院前护理期间更容易发生用药错误。解决这个问题的一种可能方法是使用技术作为药物剂量计算的认知辅助工具。
设计并实证检验一款针对院前急救中儿科药物计算的图形剂量计算器。
该计算器的设计和开发遵循迭代的以用户为中心的设计过程。14 名新手护理人员和 16 名有经验的护理人员通过使用图形计算器和当前用于辅助计算的袖珍手册运行 3 个儿科药物场景，对图形计算器进行了实证测试。
与使用手册相比，使用图形计算器完成场景所需的时间明显减少。新手和有经验的护理人员使用图形计算器的信心水平相似。参与者强烈倾向于使用图形计算器。最后，图形计算器的评分明显高于标准可用性基准。
结果表明，与当前的剂量计算方法相比，图形计算器在可用性、效果、效率和偏好方面都有优势。像本研究中设计和测试的图形计算器这样的技术不仅可以帮助解决儿科等罕见情况，还可以减轻技能衰退。
