WORK-SAMPLING - A STATISTICAL APPROACH TO EVALUATION OF THE EFFECT OFCOMPUTERS ON WORK PATTERNS IN HEALTH-CARE

An increasing number of health-care institutions are in the process of implementing clinical computing systems. The need for an accurate ass essment of the clinical, administrative, social, and financial effects of such systems has been recognized. Techniques have been developed t o evaluate these effects on the work patterns of health-care workers i ncluding: time-motion analysis, subjective evaluations, review of depa rtmental statistics, personal activity records, and work-sampling. Thi s study reviews these techniques, discusses both positive and negative aspects, and presents a step-by-step description of work-sampling.