Making Medical Transfer Mode Decisions Under Time Pressure: Understanding How Decisionmakers Interpret Historical Data

• Activity Number: 244
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Government Statistics Section
• Author(s): Birsen Donmez and Wayne Giang*+ and Russell D. MacDonald and Mahvareh Ahghari
• Companies: University of Toronto and University of Toronto and Ornge and Ornge
• Keywords: medical transport ; uncertainty visualization ; linear regression ; decision making

Abstract

The time required to transport a patient between facilities is a critical factor in ensuring positive patient outcomes. Emergency medical services often have both air and land transport options available, and while air transport is often faster than land, this is not universally true. Transport mode is a time-critical decision characterized by large amount of uncertainty. Producing accurate estimates of the time required for each vehicle type is one of the key decision components, but medical dispatchers often underestimate these times, and do not capture the variability inherent in the transfer process. One method for supporting dispatchers is to produce time estimates from historical data. However, under high time pressure, dispatchers may not have the time to analyze the available historical data and instead resort to simple decision heuristics and biases. This research examines the characteristics of the decision making process used by dispatchers as they interpret historical data, with a focus on how uncertainty information is used under high time pressure, and the trade offs between representing historical data using complex models or simpler descriptive statistics.