Ward: An exploratory study of an affective sociotechnical framework for addressing medical errors

Abstract

Affective states influence judgment, motivation, risk perceptions, and sense of well-being. Clinicians constantly struggle with negative affective states due to the nature of their work. We propose our framework, the Wearable Avatar Risk Display (WARD), to investigate medical errors from the perspective of affective states' influence. WARD is a dynamic and multimodal mobile affective system that aims for delivering information meaningfully and humanely to clinicians according to their affective states. WARD originates from sociotechnical systems theory and serves two purposes: (1) To guide the development of a test bed of avatars with lifelike behaviors (affective avatars) and (2) To investigate the interplay of clinicians' affects, risk perceptions, and decision-making ability in a healthcare setting. We recently piloted a small exploratory study using Mood Induction Procedures (MIPs), Iowa Gambling Task, and affective avatars to investigate participants' decision-making pattern. Our results indicated that participants did not benefit from our avatars currently. However, correlations analysis and suggestions from participants revealed that there is potential for affective avatars in critical or emergency situations.