Sponsored Projects

Finished Projects

Sponsored Projects

Organizations operating in critical environments, such as hospitals and security agencies, have evolved into team-based, quasi-decentralized structures. Safety, efficiency, and quality performance in these organizations depend on the ability of the organization to support large scale collaboration-real time coordination across teams, tasks, and resources in a dynamic and risk-prone environment. This research begins to tackle problems of coordination in large-scale collaboration through field research in a trauma center, technology development of mobile devices for real time coordination, and laboratory studies to understand coordination across teams, people, and resources.

The research aims to develop a theory of trajectory management and management tools in large-scale collaboration and practical solutions to cross-team coordination. Researchers from University of Maryland Medical School, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Arizona will collaborate on this research. This project will improve theory in organization science, increase understanding of how to exploit new information technology in critical environments, and improve coordination in hospitals and other vital organizations.

Project Website: hfrp.umaryland.edu/coordination

Researchers from the HFRP at the University of Maryland, Baltimore are collaborating with a leading telecommunications company to create next generation wireless internet solutions using patented technology that will extend the reach of physicians and nurses.  The project provides an exciting technology demonstration opportunity for the corporate sponsor.  The solutions developed hold the promise of dramatically improving the efficiency of emergency medical care.  We are currently testing the solutions to optimize efficiency of the cardiac CathLab facilities use.

This research is a joint effort between the University of Maryland Human Factors Research Program (UM-HFRP), University of Utah, and Johnson Space Center's Usability Testing and Analysis Facility (NASA-UTAF). It will focus on the clinical capabilities for responding to medical emergencies, using EMPC protocols for Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) as a testing task model for such an effort. The existing EMPC will be enhanced through the development of high- and low-resolution multimedia-supported computerized checklists to enhanced clinical capabilities. There are ongoing collaborative efforts between UM-HFRP and NASA JSC-UTAF. The University of Maryland and Utah have extensive experience in the use of multimedia to support medical performance, and NASA JSC-UTAF has investigated many aspects of the paper-based EMPC for other usability issues and works closely with the NASA medical community.

Project website: hfrp.umaryland.edu/nasa

We propose a 32-month research program designed to illuminate the influence of individual differences, team characteristics, and adaptive leadership on individual and team performance within a dynamic work environment. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, we will refine and test our conceptual model in a real-life, dynamic work setting: the Maryland Shock Trauma Center (STC). STC is the hub of Maryland's system of emergency trauma care, treating over 6,000 victims of traumatic injury each year. Medical residents in the STC work in cross-functional teams of varying composition to treat patients who arrive at unpredictable times with uncertain diagnoses. Like soldiers in the Army’s Objective Force, residents must perform adaptively as they face highly unpredictable, uncertain, and urgent problems whose resolution literally has life-or-death consequences. We will complement the research realism of STC data collection with the research rigor of experimentation in the Michigan State University TEAMSim Laboratory, a dynamic, PC-based, radar tracking simulation designed for the study of individual and team adaptive performance.

The long term goal of this research is to address the issues involved in developing effective computer systems for individuals experiencing situationally-induced impairments. Like disability-induced impairments (DII), situationally-induced impairments (SII) exist when the physical, cognitive, or perceptual demands placed on the user exceed their abilities. Unlike DII, SII are a result of the environments in which the work is being performed or the tasks in which the user is engaged. For example, paramedics must complete forms while providing medical care during ambulance-based patient transfers. The ambulance is moving, there is no stable surface on which to place the device being used to complete the forms, and the paramedic’s hands, eyes, and ears are often busy providing medical care. As a result, paramedics experience a variety of situationally-induced impairments while performing job related tasks.

The broad impact of this work is highlighted by the rapid diffusion of mobile computing technologies. As mobile computing becomes more pervasive, users enjoy increased flexibility in terms of where and when they record, retrieve, and transmit information. At the same time, the conditions under which these devices are used are becoming more variable, less predictable, and in many situations less hospitable. With increasing frequency, computers are being used when lighting is poor, noise is unpredictable, or when the user is on the move (e.g., walking, driving a vehicle). In addition, mobile devices also result in users interrupting an ongoing activities to perform secondary computer-based tasks. Individuals are replying to text pages during meetings, doctors are reviewing operating room schedules while interacting with patients, and individuals are retrieving directions from their in-vehicle navigation system while driving.

The Developmental Center for Evaluation and Research in Patient Safety (DCERPS) in University of Maryland and hospitals of University of Maryland Medical Systems has the following specific aims:

(1) To build a multi-disciplinary team to conduct fundamental research on patient safety.
(2) To establish ties between research identities and healthcare delivery systems for research and demonstrations to enhance patient safety.
(3) To develop educational programs on the importance of patient safety and evidenced based mechanisms to improve it.
(4) To develop a research proposal for a pilot study on infections in central intravenous line placement.

Project website: cvptraining.org

This project develops and tests a distributed teamwork skills training program for co-located or distributed teams performing complex, highly interdependent tasks that require overlapping expertise and shared knowledge, flexibility, and the capability for rapid organization and deployment to respond quickly to a changing situation. Our goal is to develop and demonstrate a training approach that uses advanced distance learning technology to provide portable training to small, flexible, quickly reconfigured, rapidly deployed military teams. The program is a web-enabled, scenario-based teamwork skills training program comprised of: information about and examples of teamwork skills; scenario-based training exercises that provide practice in teamwork skills; guidelines for team-conducted exercise debriefings that do not require the presence of a training instructor; and a leader’s manual that helps team leaders to conduct web-based training sessions. The version we are currently developing is focused on physicians under training (fellows and residents) working in an academic trauma center.

Finished Projects

Computation and communication technologies have the potential to improve coordination in dynamic task and team situations. To realize that potential a deep understanding of the coordination processes used by teams is required. This project investigates the coordination processes used by distributed teams of experts operating in a highly dynamic work domain -- a trauma patient resuscitation unit. The main objective is to develop a framework for modeling coordination processes by team members in dynamic, multi-tasking, highly stressful environments. An interdisciplinary team with wide-ranging research backgrounds including team performance, information technologies, medicine, nursing, health care informatics, management sciences, biomedical engineering and ethnography will conduct the project.

Qualitative and quantitative methods including ethnographic studies, surveys and interviews will be used to capture coordination processes in situ in trauma center settings. The project will result in a better understanding of the role of various communication media and how each medium is used in dynamic work settings to achieve work coordination and maintain adequate awareness. A set of design principles will be developed that can guide the deployment of communication-computation systems in domains where tasks are highly dynamic and accomplished by multi-disciplinary teams.

(Project Final Report)

The project is to investigate relationships between leadership and team performance when leaders are at a distance. Leadership in team performance can hardly be overstated in many situations, understanding how leadership is related to team performance is important to military as well as civilian organizations. With widespread use of electronic communication technologies, it becomes essential to establish a theoretical and empirical basis for predicting how new communication technologies impact on leadership and team performance.

To better understand distant leadership under stress, we propose a three-year project with two intertwining lines of efforts: (1) to develop a conceptual model of the interaction between task structure, stress levels, communication modality, and leadership effectiveness; (2) to conduct an empirical study of distant leadership using a real, dynamic, and stressful work environment as a laboratory. specific aims : (a) developing a matrix of leadership functions and situations in which leadership functions are needed; (b) developing a model of nominal leadership processes through which a leader applies control over and influence on team activities, either co-located or at a distance; (c) developing process measures of leadership in a team environment; and (d) conducting a series prospective studies in a real, event-driven, stressful environment to evaluate the impact of various communication modalities on leadership, using the measures developed.

(Project Final Report)

Dynamic work environments require team members to maintain an awareness of resources, incoming workload, and activities and knowledge of other people for the purpose of coordinating plans and activities, often across time and location. This proposal systematically investigates the coordination processes used by distributed expertise teams operating in high velocity work environments. We will explore how existing coordinative artifacts are used to support awareness by team members of each others' status, current and forthcoming workload, and understanding of the task.

We will also introduce and study the impact of new digital coordination technologies and evaluate how the properties of computer-enhanced coordinative artifacts affect awareness support. Ethnographic studies, surveys and interviews will be conducted in a real , highly dynamic, multi-tasking, multi-disciplinary work environment. The proposed three-year effort will establish a theoretic-empirical basis for augmenting coordination processes in teams through computer technology. The two main objectives of the proposal are: (1) to develop a framework for modeling coordination processes by team members in highly dynamic, multi-tasking environments and (2) with the guidance of the framework, to explore a category of awareness support techniques based on shared visual displays.

(Project Final Report)

Our objective is to provide reliable and robust transmission of multimedia diagnostic information from enroute ambulances to receiving physicians using wireless, nomadic Next Generation Internet (NGI) technologies. Combining wireless data communications and NGI technologies allows developing a Next Generation Mobile Telemedicine System (NGM) that revolutionizes the care possible during patient transport. The real-time transmission of patient data from an accident scene and during transport to the receiving trauma center enables diagnostic and treatment opportunities previously unavailable before arrival at the receiving center. Such transmission of patient data also has the potential to significantly improve the preparedness of the emergency department staff prior to the patient arrival.

To demonstrate the value of a video-based procedural analysis and to develop a research framework for studying the effects of team and environmental factors on performance.  Such detailed video, task, and ergonomic analyses may be useful in many emergency procedures as a means of categorizing and developing best clinical practice models.

This project is a study of two complimentary parts on the informational value and user responses to auditory warning signals in critical care settings: (1) a prospective , comprehensive (video-based with mobile eye-tracking devices) data collection in real patient care (initial trauma patient resuscitation and anesthesia care) and (2) a set of simulator experiments also with the use of eye-tracking devices. We aim at both an understanding of the value of auditory alarms as one of many information sources with which clinicians consult, as well as a set of design guidelines that are based on empirical research. Our efforts should make an initial step in realizing the full potential of alarms in safeguarding the patient and reducing errors.

(Project Final Report)

This project is to develop and evaluate a miniaturized heart function indicator, which analyzes heart rhythm data to derive indicators of acute heart diseases. The modes of operations are anticipated for the indicator: warning/monitor display device, data recorder, and automatic stress call. These three modes are to address two categories of the delay in current treatment response system: delay in activating EMS system and delay in early diagnosis. There have been extensive work on the analysis of heart rhythm data for the purpose of diagnosing heart conditions. Nearly all of them deal with off-line analysis.

We plan to exploit algorithms for real-time analysis of heart-rhythm data. A recent article in Physical Review Letter describes a method based on wavelet analysis. Our long term goal is to develop a wrist-watch type device to be worn by high-risk patients and then evaluate clinical utilities. Three uses of the device are anticipated to benefit the patient: as a real-time warning device for the patient, a data recorder for physician to download, and an automatic stress call device.