Experience Matters: Design and Evaluation of an Anesthesia Support Tool Guided by User Experience Theory

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Despite many advances, clinical decision support tools (DSTs) often suffer from implementation and acceptance problems in the actual clinical context. We suggest that considering psychological needs-based and embodied user experience theories in the design of DSTs could help to overcome these problems. To examine this idea, we iteratively developed a DST called Cassandra supporting anesthetic teams in crisis management, specifically focusing on psychological needs and fluent interaction with the social and physical environment. We preliminarily evaluated Cassandra in a medical simulation, requiring anesthetic teams to handle a crisis. Although not all features of Cassandra had the intended effect, the results indicated that interacting with Cassandra supported the fulfillment of the identified needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness and was seamlessly integrated into existing diagnostic processes. Considering user experience theories for the design of DSTs seems a promising way to overcome implementation and acceptance problems and eventually improve patient safety.