BACKGROUND
Healthcare technology has the ability to change patient outcomes for the better when designed appropriately. Automation is becoming smarter and is increasingly being integrated into healthcare work systems.
OBJECTIVE
This study focuses on investigating trust between patients and an automated cardiac risk assessment tool (CRAT) in a simulated emergency department (ED) setting.
METHODS
A within-subjects experimental study was performed to investigate differences in automation modes for the CRAT: (1) no automation, (2) automation only, and (3) semi-automation. Participants were asked to enter their symptoms for each scenario into the CRAT, and they would automatically be classified as high, medium, or low risk depending on the symptoms entered. Participants were asked to provide their trust ratings for each combination of risk classification and automation mode.
RESULTS
Results from this study indicate the participants significantly trusted the semi-automation condition more compared to the automation only condition, and they trusted the no automation condition significantly more than the automation only condition (p < 0.05). Additionally, participants significantly trusted the CRAT more in the high severity scenario compared to the medium severity scenario (p < 0.05). There were also significantly lower trust ratings for participants who stated they had previous ED patient experience compared to those without previous patient experience in the ED (p < 0.05).
CONCLUSIONS
The findings from this study emphasize the importance of the human component of automation when designing automated technology in healthcare systems. Automation and artificially intelligent systems are becoming more prevalent in healthcare systems, and this work emphasizes the need to consider the human element when designing automation into care delivery.