Effects of Information Access Cost and Accountability on Medical Residents’ Information Retrieval Strategy and Performance During Prehandover Preparation

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to examine the effects of information access cost and accountability on medical residents’ information retrieval strategy and performance during prehandover preparation. Background: Prior studies observing doctors’ prehandover practices witnessed the use of memory-intensive strategies when retrieving patient information. These strategies impose potential threats to patient safety as human memory is prone to errors. Of interest in this work are the underlying determinants of information retrieval strategy and the potential impacts on medical residents’ information preparation performance. Method: A two-step research approach was adopted, consisting of semistructured interviews with 21 medical residents and a simulation-based experiment with 32 medical residents. Results: The semistructured interviews revealed that a substantial portion of medical residents (38%) relied largely on memory for preparing handover information. The simulation-based experiment showed that higher information access cost reduced information access attempts and access duration on patient documents and harmed information preparation performance. Higher accountability led to marginally longer access to patient documents. Conclusion: It is important to understand the underlying determinants of medical residents’ information retrieval strategy and performance during prehandover preparation. We noted the criticality of easy access to patient documents in prehandover preparation. In addition, accountability marginally influenced medical residents’ information retrieval strategy. Application: Findings from this research suggested that the cost of accessing information sources should be minimized in developing handover preparation tools.