Exposing undergraduate students to the challenges of integrating technology in healthcare delivery

Laura Ikuma, Isabelina Nahmens, Craig M. Harvey, Dan Godbee, Tonya Jagneaux

Research output: Contribution to book or proceedingConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

Healthcare is increasingly incorporating industrial engineering tools into process improvement initiatives. This includes integrating technology into healthcare delivery, which is an appealing solution to “fix” problems. However, inserting technology without the proper systems integration can limit utility and success. Exposing industrial engineering students to these challenges is critical in training future healthcare leaders. This paper highlights the senior design capstone project for industrial engineering undergraduate students, which is a two-course sequence in the last year of their curriculum. Several of these projects focused on using technology to improve healthcare processes, providing hands-on experience with the challenges of integrating technology in real healthcare systems. These projects can be evaluated in terms of sociotechnical systems components, which considers the system dimensions of the person, task, technology, environment, and organization. Students found that patient-facing technology had more challenges from the other aspects of sociotechnical systems, which influenced the potential sustainability and success of the efforts. They gained an appreciation of the complexity of systems and how technology alone is insufficient to produce lasting, meaningful change. This experience served to prepare industrial engineering students for careers in healthcare and other highly complex industries.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHCI in Business, Government and Organizations - 7th International Conference, HCIBGO 2020, Held as Part of the 22nd HCI International Conference, HCII 2020, Proceedings
EditorsFiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Keng Siau
PublisherSpringer
Pages69-79
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)9783030503406
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020
Externally publishedYes
Event7th International Conference on HCI in Business, Government, and Organizations, HCIBGO 2020, held as part of the 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020 - Copenhagen, Denmark
Duration: Jul 19 2020Jul 24 2020

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12204 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference7th International Conference on HCI in Business, Government, and Organizations, HCIBGO 2020, held as part of the 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityCopenhagen
Period07/19/2007/24/20

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

Keywords

  • Healthcare
  • Technology integration
  • Undergraduate education

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