When seconds are counted: tools for mobile, high-resolution time-motion studies.

Abstract

Time-motion (TM) studies are often considered the gold-standard for measurements of the impact of computer systems on task flow and duration. However, in many clinical environments tasks occur too rapidly and have too short of a duration to be captured with conventional paper-based TM methods. Observers may also with to categorize caregiver activities along multiple axes simultaneously. This multi-axial characteristic of clinical activity has been modeled as multiple, parallel finite-state sets and implemented in three computerized data collection tools. Radiology reporting is a domain in which tasks can be characterized by multiple attributes. A radiologist may also switch among multiple tasks in a single minute. The use of these tools to measure the impact of an Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) system on Radiology reporting is presented.