Graduation Year

2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Nursing

Major Professor

John Clochesy, Ph.D., R.N.

Committee Member

Mo Modarres, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Melanie Michael, D.N.P., Ph.D.

Committee Member

Keith Weeks, Ph.D., R.N.

Committee Member

Ming Ji, Ph.D.

Keywords

EEG, Electronic Health Record, Technology, Acute Care, Multi-task

Abstract

Over 4 million avoidable hospital admissions result from medication errors (IMS Insitute for Healthcare Informatics, 2013). Human error accounts for 80% of all medical errors (Palmieri, DeLucia, Peterson, Ott, & Green, 2008). Medication administration is a complex process. It is important to understand the cognitive load (CL) of Registered Nurses (RNs) working in an electronic health record environment to identify the risk factors of medication errors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence the CL of RNs during medication administration who are working in an electronic health record environment. Simulated medication administration scenarios with varying degrees of multi-tasking were completed with 30 participants. When RNs multi-task during medication administration their CL increases. Furthermore, RNs who have poor sleep quality cannot process high-level tasks as well as those RNs who report a good sleep quality. Future work can limit EEG lead placement to the frontal channels of the EEG. Furthermore, replication of this study with a larger sample and a broader range of competing tasks is indicated.

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