Design for effective care collaboration

In an era when many clinicians contribute to acute care for a single patient, effective clinical communication requires (1) gathering and recording data when patients present for acute care or are treated by first responders; (2) maintaining patient information throughout an acute care episode, including adding updates, documenting interpretations and decision-making rationale, and organizing patient information so it can easily be shared among care teams; and (3) preparing for discharge by generating documentation that provides information needed by the clinicians who will coordinate outpatient care. This chapter illustrates how human factors research can help address current shortfalls in how health-care information is collected, stored, distributed, and analyzed. We review two efforts focused on helping to improve clinical communication, which address different current challenges using different methods. Human factors methodologies are needed now more than ever to address challenges in care coordination across the continuum of a patient’s care.