Medical emergency dynamics in disaster-prone countries – implications for medical device design

Emergency medical services and surgery are an essential part of the local response to natural and humanitarian disasters. The aim of this study is to identify performance obstacles regarding the use of medical devices in medical emergencies. The case study, conducted in the Dr. Sardjito General Hospital in Indonesia, entails semi-structured interviews with surgeons from the Orthopaedics and Traumatology Department, as well as exploratory observations in the emergency and operating rooms. A literature-based reporting tool, observable performance obstacles (OPO), was designed and tested. The results demonstrate that data collection through observation yields rich insights that are relevant to the literature on human factors, and to the applied field of user-centred design. This experience also reveals the inherent difficulty of doing research in the dynamic setting of medical emergencies. As a result, several changes to the OPO are proposed for its application in follow-up projects.