Cognitive Artifacts in Complex Work - Ambient Intelligence for Scientific Discovery - page 160

Laboratory Study. One senior anesthesia staff member per day plans the daily
schedule in the OR unit and outpatient clinic, then manages those assignments
the following day. Anesthesiologists with coordinator experience were invited
to each write a schedule while being recorded on videotape. Four coordinators
out of eight were available and three agreed to participate. Summaries of the
sessions removed all identifying information and included three elements: verbal
transcript, annotated artifacts, and comments on coordinator cognitive work.
Categorization, classification and analysis were used to produce a formalized
performance description for a number of anesthesia coordinators who wrote daily
schedules. Recording and analysis of master schedule writing sessions showed
how the anesthesia coordinator formulates a feasible future for the following
day. Observation and interviews with acute care team members revealed the
cognitive work that is involved in translating the schedule's intentions into the
daily reality of acute care.

3.2 Implications of Replacing Physical Artifacts

with Digital Versions

The installation of an electronic scheduling system at the same site (Fig. 2) made
it possible to observe how a digital version fared as a replacement for a simple
paper artifact. In this new display (Fig. 3) cases were listed in the same manner
as the paper artifact shown in Fig. 1.
As a mimic of the paper master schedule, it did not improve the information
that it conveyed or the way that the information was displayed. In fact, the
electronic display imposed diculties that had not been a problem when the
paper version was in use. For example, limitations to the information display
such as field size restrictions resulted in problems with display use that had not
been anticipated.

Fig. 2. Electronic scheduling system at coordinator station.