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Cognitive Informatics pp 103–114Cite as

Interruptions and Multitasking in Clinical Work: A Summary of the Evidence

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Part of the book series: Health Informatics ((HI))

Abstract

The study of interruptions and multitasking as central elements of clinical workflow has increasingly featured as a topic of investigation within the healthcare sector due to their perceived implications for the efficient and safe delivery of care. The body of research in this area is large and growing, covering a wide range of settings and healthcare professionals. Drawing on findings from the fields of experimental psychology and aviation, the assumption that interruptions and multitasking may negatively impact clinical work has dominated research of these phenomena in healthcare.

Evidence of the effects of interruptions and multitasking is neither consistent nor conclusive, however, due in part to the complexity of workflow in healthcare and the corresponding challenges to studying it (Walter, Acad Emerg Med 25(10):1178–1180, 2018; Walter et al., Int J Hum Comput Stud 79:118–125, 2015). A predominance of descriptive studies (Kannampallil et al., J Biomed Inform 64:342–351, 2016) has quantified aspects of clinical work in a range of settings, including quantifying the pervasiveness of interruptions and multitasking. However, these studies were generally not designed to assess the impacts of these phenomena. A smaller group of studies has assessed various effects of multitasking and, more commonly, interruptions. These studies have reported a rather heterogeneous range of results.

This chapter provides an overview of the current evidence about the role of interruptions and multitasking in healthcare and their impact on workflow and outcomes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

    Johanna I. Westbrook, Magdalena Z. Raban & Scott R. Walter

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  1. Johanna I. Westbrook
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  2. Magdalena Z. Raban
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  3. Scott R. Walter
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Correspondence to Johanna I. Westbrook .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Kai Zheng

  2. Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

    Johanna Westbrook

  3. Department of Anesthesiology and Institute for Informatics, School of Medicine, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA

    Thomas G. Kannampallil

  4. Center for Cognitive Studies in Medicine and Public Health, The New York Academy of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Vimla L. Patel

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Westbrook, J.I., Raban, M.Z., Walter, S.R. (2019). Interruptions and Multitasking in Clinical Work: A Summary of the Evidence. In: Zheng, K., Westbrook, J., Kannampallil, T., Patel, V. (eds) Cognitive Informatics. Health Informatics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16916-9_7

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