title: Cognitive engineering and health informatics: Applications and intersections.
abstract: Cognitive engineering is an applied field with roots in both cognitive science and engineering that has been used to support design of information displays, decision support, human-automation interaction, and training in numerous high risk domains ranging from nuclear power plant control to transportation and defense systems. Cognitive engineering provides a set of structured, analytic methods for data collection and analysis that intersect with and complement methods of Cognitive Informatics. These methods support discovery of aspects of the work that make performance challenging, as well as the knowledge, skills, and strategies that experts use to meet those challenges. Importantly, cognitive engineering methods provide novel representations that highlight the inherent complexities of the work domain and traceable links between the results of cognitive analyses and actionable design requirements. This article provides an overview of relevant cognitive engineering methods, and illustrates how they have been applied to the design of health information technology (HIT) systems. Additionally, although cognitive engineering methods have been applied in the design of user-centered informatics systems, methods drawn from informatics are not typically incorporated into a cognitive engineering analysis. This article presents a discussion regarding ways in which data-rich methods can inform cognitive engineering.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, United States; National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, MedStar Health, Washington, DC, United States. Electronic address: aaron.z.hettinger@medstar.net.
authors.forename: A Zachary
authors.initials: AZ
authors.lastname: Hettinger
authors.affiliation: Roth Cognitive Engineering, Stanford, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Emilie M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Roth
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, United States.
authors.forename: Ann M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bisantz
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D003625:Data Collection; D003626:Data Display; D006801:Humans; D008490:Medical Informatics; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Cognitive engineering; Cognitive informatics; Emergency medicine; Health information technology; Review