The Cognitive Complexity of a Provider Order Entry Interface

This is a review of the article by Horsky et al (2003) titled The Cognitive Complexity of a Provider Order Entry Interface.

The Cognitive Complexity of a Provider Order Entry Interface

Jan Horsky, MA, David R. Kaufman, PhD, and Vimla L. Patel, PhD AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2003; 2003: 294–298.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1480200/

Background

Cognitive engineering is an approach that looks at the complexity of intellectual interaction of humans and machines. Cognition can be viewed as a process of coordinating internal and external representations in the users distributed resources framework. It is an approach that can be used to investigate the interaction of errors.

The development of Order entry systems was anticipated to deliver benefits such as the elimination of errors associated with hand-written orders and increase in speed and quality of communication between clinicians. However, newly adopted technologies can introduce new sources of error, as they tend to alter work hits and practices. CPOE is an inherently complex process and poor interface design not only slows down the clinician but can also introduce a source of error. (