The impact of interruptions on clinical task completion (2010)

Summary

Interruptions and multitasking are implicated as a major cause of clinical inefficiency and error. The aim of this study by Westbrook et al. was to measure the association between emergency doctors' rates of interruption and task completion times and rates.

Content

The authors conducted a prospective observational time and motion study in the emergency department of a 400-bed teaching hospital. They found that doctors were interrupted 6.6 times/h. 11% of all tasks were interrupted, 3.3% more than once. Doctors multitasked for 12.8% of time.

It appears that in busy interrupt-driven clinical environments, clinicians reduce the time they spend on clinical tasks if they experience interruptions, and may delay or fail to return to a significant portion of interrupted tasks. Task shortening may occur because interrupted tasks are truncated to ‘catch up’ for lost time, which may have significant implications for patient safety.