PROCESS DESIGN FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY PATIENT CARE MEETINGS: CONSIDERING THE HUMAN FACTOR

This paper describes a study of content and communication processes in multidisciplinary meetings of healthcare professionals, using a Human Factors engineering approach. The goal of the study, which took place in a teaching hospital Toronto, Canada, was to understand the processes of collaboration and information exchange that take place in the meetings, and to identify potential supports for the meetings, including the use of information technology. The methodology included data collection through observation of the multidisciplinary patient care meetings, and quantitative analysis of verbal exchanges in those meetings. The results suggested the need for a standardized approach to information exchange using structured language.