How do interruptions impact nurses' visual scanning patterns when using barcode medication administration systems?

While barcode medication administration (BCMA) systems have the potential to reduce medication errors, they may introduce errors, side effects, and hazards into the medication administration process. Studies of BCMA systems should therefore consider the interrelated nature of health information technology (IT) use and sociotechnical systems. We aimed to understand how the introduction of interruptions into the BCMA process impacts nurses' visual scanning patterns, a proxy for one component of cognitive processing. We used an eye tracker to record nurses' visual scanning patterns while administering a medication using BCMA. Nurses either performed the BCMA process in a controlled setting with no interruptions (n=25) or in a real clinical setting with interruptions (n=21). By comparing the visual scanning patterns between the two groups, we found that nurses in the interruptive environment identified less task-related information in a given period of time, and engaged in more information searching than information processing.