Activity analysis for designing an anesthesia record system

In a context of increasing development of Information Systems and computers in the hospitals, the departments of anesthesiology display an important demand for sessions. Software applications able to support the medical activity all along the anesthetic process. The authors focus here on the preoperative phase. Some medical departments of anesthesiology have developed software applications supporting data gathering during the anesthetic consultation. But the daily use of these computerized medical files is usually limited to some medical units and to a limited number of physicians in the units. The usual explanations given for this lack of dissemination stress resistance to changes or insufficient training. The authors assume that most of the actual software applications do not properly handle medical cognitive activity, thus creating cognitive conflicts during physician-machine interaction. An experimental and functional assessment of such an anesthetic software application clearly demonstrates the incompatibility between the structure of the interface and the usual expert strategies and procedures implemented by the anesthetists when performing the preoperative consultation.