Designing User Interfaces for Smart-Applications for Operating Rooms and Intensive Care Units

Today’s physicians and nurses working in operating rooms and intensive care units have to deal with an ever increasing amount of data. More and more medical devices are delivering information, which has to be perceived and interpreted in regard to patient status and the necessity to adjust therapy. The combination of high information load and insufficient usability creates a severe challenge for the health personnel with respect to proper monitoring of these devices respective to acknowledging alarms and timely reaction to critical incidents. Smart Applications are a new kind of decision support systems that incorporate medical expertise in order to help health personnel in regard to diagnosis and therapy. By means of a User Centered Design process of two Smart Applications (anaesthesia monitor display, diagnosis display), we illustrate which approach should be followed and which processes and methods have been successfully applied in fostering the design of usable medical devices.