Title:
An investigation on task interruptions and the physical environment for human performance

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dc.contributor.advisor Zimring, Craig
dc.contributor.author Seo, Hyun-Bo en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Bafna, Sonit
dc.contributor.committeeMember Durso, Frank
dc.contributor.committeeMember Do, Ellen Yi-Luen
dc.contributor.committeeMember Ackerman, Jeremy
dc.contributor.department Architecture en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2011-09-22T17:50:39Z
dc.date.available 2011-09-22T17:50:39Z
dc.date.issued 2011-07-14 en_US
dc.description.abstract Many dangerous or tragic events such as airplane crashes and medical errors are often the result of human errors, and these errors are often the result of a professional worker being interrupted during a critical task. Although their impact can be serious, the ways that interruptions are affected by the physical environment have rarely been examined in the study of architecture. Therefore, this thesis investigates how the physical environment helps manage the interruptions by observing the process of medication administration by nurses in hospital units. Nurse shadowing observation data showed that the level of visibility of work areas in and around nurse stations significantly contributed to the number of interruptions initiated by others. Therefore, this thesis concludes that the physical environment affects interruption events and discusses the design implications of observation-based findings and the potential impact of the physical environment on major clinical errors. As for future directions for investigation, this thesis suggests that interruptions become a more prominent subject for consideration in architecture, and the physical environment as a subject for analyzing interruption and performance in human factors and health care. en_US
dc.description.degree Ph.D. en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/41160
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology en_US
dc.subject Physical environment en_US
dc.subject Nurse en_US
dc.subject Hospital en_US
dc.subject Design en_US
dc.subject Task en_US
dc.subject Medication administration en_US
dc.subject Interruption en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Environmental psychology
dc.subject.lcsh Architecture Psychological aspects
dc.subject.lcsh Architecture Human factors
dc.title An investigation on task interruptions and the physical environment for human performance en_US
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Zimring, Craig
local.contributor.corporatename College of Design
local.contributor.corporatename School of Architecture
local.relation.ispartofseries Doctor of Philosophy with a Major in Architecture
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relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication c997b6a0-7e87-4a6f-b6fc-932d776ba8d0
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 0533a423-c95b-41cf-8e27-2faee06278ad
relation.isSeriesOfPublication 1e9dd6c5-039f-4195-b3b6-bc27d2df5b9f
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