THE doctor is in 鈥� but are they listening to you, or is that iPad on the desk absorbing all their attention?
Electronic records, medical apps, iPads, and other devices and technologies offer numerous potential benefits for healthcare workers and have been widely adopted. But they also create more and might erode the quality of care someone receives.
The Lab-in-a-Box aims to change that by analysing doctors as they work. It sits in the corner of their office, keeping tabs on every move, look and word.
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at the University of California at San Diego, who built the system with a team of colleagues, hopes it will shed light on what sidetracks doctors during consultations with patients.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not just what the patient is saying. It鈥檚 their facial expression, it鈥檚 the way they鈥檙e interacting,鈥� says Weibel. 鈥淚f the doctor is looking at a screen with the patient there, all of that is lost.鈥�
Lab-in-a-Box uses several tools to paint a picture of activity in the office. A Microsoft Kinect depth camera records body and head movements, while an eye-tracker follows the doctor鈥檚 gaze and a microphone keeps tabs on who is talking. Meanwhile, software separately installed on the computer captures activity like keyboard strokes, mouse movement and application pop-ups.
The system analyses the various data streams and compares them to moments when the doctor鈥檚 focus is drawn away from the patient. For example, high computer activity paired with rapid eye movement and pupil dilation might indicate that there are too many demands on their attention. Lots of head and eye movement would suggest that the doctor is multitasking between the patient and the computer.
In an ongoing pilot study, Lab-in-a-Box has been set up in doctors鈥� offices at the UCSD medical centre, the US Veteran鈥檚 Affairs Medical Center in San Diego, and several nearby community clinics. Weibel鈥檚 team will compare the data across different settings and medical specialities in search of patterns that indicate distraction is likely. The results could help highlight ways to design medical software that is less disruptive.
A future version of Lab-in-a-Box could be permanently placed in a clinic and programmed to provide real-time prompts, warning physicians that they might not be paying enough attention to their patients. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something we鈥檙e thinking to do as soon as we have some more understanding about when are the best opportunities to engage physicians,鈥� says Weibel.
Many healthcare professionals don鈥檛 realise how attached they are to their devices, says , an anaesthesiologist at the University of Rochester in New York. Papadakos has developed a questionnaire to help healthcare workers identify when their technology use has become problematic.
聯Many healthcare professionals don鈥檛 realise how attached they are to their devices聰
A tool like Lab-in-a-Box could be the wake-up call that screen-addicted docs need, he says. 鈥淚 think this is going to be a fascinating device. It will be yet another way to show people that they need to focus.鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淒oc-watcher spots when physicians drift鈥�
