Can IT health-care applications improve the medication tray-filling process at hospital wards? An exploratory study using eye-tracking and stress response

Filling medication trays and dispensing them at hospital wards is a painstaking, time-consuming and tedious task involving searching for medication in large shelves, double checking in the daily filled tray that the appearance, amount and concentration of each medication corresponds to the prescription, as well as analysing the timing conditions, among other details. Finally, if needed, finding equivalent compounds containing no secondary effects is also crucial, as well as being aware of the dynamically changing treatments in patients located, e.g., in surgery wards. Once the tray is filled, similar concerns and checks need to be done before dispensing the medication to the patient. We conducted a pilot in two university hospital wards using eye-tracking glasses and stress response to assess the tasks that take time the most and are most meticulous or stressing for the nurses. The aim is to use the findings to implement a mobile application that helps saving time and proneness to errors daily in such complex nursing procedures. Index Terms—eye-tracking, stress, filling medication tray, hospital, dispensing, nurse, eHealth Filling medication trays and dispensing them at hospital wards is a painstaking, time-consuming and tedious task involving searching for medication in large shelves, double checking in the daily filled tray that the appearance, amount and concentration of each medication corresponds to the prescription, as well as analysing the timing conditions, among other details. Finally, if needed, finding equivalent compounds containing no secondary effects is also crucial, as well as being aware of the dynamically changing treatments in patients located, e.g., in surgery wards. Once the tray is filled, similar concerns and checks need to be done before dispensing the medication to the patient. We conducted a pilot in two university hospital wards using eye-tracking glasses and stress response to assess the tasks that take time the most and are most meticulous or stressing for the nurses. The aim is to use the findings to implement a mobile application that helps saving time and proneness to errors daily in such complex nursing procedures. Index Terms—eye-tracking, stress, filling medication tray, hospital, dispensing, nurse, eHealth.