Two usability issues from recent discussions:
1) PCA - as I understand it patients have a button that they can press to administer pain relief. However, there are controls as to how much drug the pump will deliver no matter how much the patient presses the button, e.g. it ignores the extra button presses beyond a limit. Does anyone know what sort of feedback, if any, these devices give the patient and clinical staff?? Does it just ignore the patient with no feedback? Does it make a dull sound to show it cannot comply? Does the nurse have access to how many times the patient has requested a dose?
These different configurations could have important implications for the patient's own management of dosing/pain and the awareness of patient comfort by clinical staff.
2) ECG monitors. I heard ECG machines are commonly reported broken when actually the wrong paper has been used or it has been put in upside down. Apparently this is a persistent and annoying problem. Do other's agree this is persistent? Any good ideas on alleviating this issue?
Thanks
