title: Interruptions experienced by cardiovascular intensive care unit nurses: an observational study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Intensive care unit (ICU) nurses get interrupted frequently. Although interruptions take cognitive resources from a primary task and may hinder performance, they may also convey critical information. Effective management of interruptions in ICUs requires the understanding of interruption characteristics, the context in which interruption happens, and interruption content.
  
  
  METHODS
  An observational study was conducted in a cardiovascular ICU at a Canadian teaching hospital. Four observers (1 PhD and 3 undergraduate students) trained in human factors research observed 40 nurses, approximately 1 hour each, over a 3-week period. Data were recorded by the observers in real time, using touchscreen tablet PCs and special software designed for this purpose.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although approximately half of the interruptions (~51%) happened during high-severity tasks, more than half of these interruptions, which happened during high-severity tasks, conveyed either work- or patient-related information. Furthermore, the rate of interruptions with personal content was significantly higher during low-severity tasks compared with medium- and high-severity tasks.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Mitigation strategies other than blocking should also be explored. In addition, interrupters might have evaluated primary task severity before interrupting. Therefore, making task severity more transparent may help others modulate when and how they interrupt a nurse.
authors: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; HumanEra, Techna, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors: Farzan
authors: F
authors: Sasangohar
authors: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. Electronic address: donmez@mie.utoronto.ca.
authors: Birsen
authors: B
authors: Donmez
authors: HumanEra, Techna, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors: Anthony
authors: A
authors: Easty
authors: University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors: Helen
authors: H
authors: Storey
authors: HumanEra, Techna, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors: Patricia
authors: P
authors: Trbovich
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002170:Canada; D064648:Critical Care Nursing; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000458:organization & administration; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014937:Work
keywords: Cardiovascular; ICU; Interruptions; Nursing; Task severity