This paper presents the design and the results of a comparative study of multidisciplinary on-scene command teams at work in virtual emergency training exercises. The principal goals of the study were to understand how "on-scene command teams" coordinate on multidisciplinary objectives and tasks, and how the manner in which this is done affects their performance. The study involved 20 on-scene command teams consisting of various individuals, such as police, fire and medical services personnel, municipal officers and infrastructure operators, drawn from a Safety Region in The Netherlands. Integrated video recordings by five synchronized cameras captured the coordination processes during the virtual exercises. The integrated and synchronized video recordings were then transformed into numerical data for analysis. Performance was operationalized by scoring the progress and completion of emergency management tasks for which individual members and/or teams as a whole were responsible. Team coordination was operationalized using network centrality and density measures. The significant findings are the following: (i) emergency management performance and coordination patterns within and among on-scene command teams have considerable variation; and (ii) teams that use less coordination during the intermediate phases of emergency management perform significantly better than teams that do not, moreover, actors who have central positions in a network are better able to achieve their performance goals.
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With the rise of chronic diseases as the number one cause of death and disability among urban populations, it has become increasingly important to design for healthy environments. There is, however, a lack of interdisciplinary approaches and solutions to improve health and well-being through urban planning and design. This case study offers an HCI solution and approach to design for healthy urban structures and dynamics in existing neighborhoods. We discuss the design process and design of ROOT, an interactive lighting system that aims to stimulate walking and running through supportive, collaborative and social interaction.
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Introduction: The implementation of oncology care pathways that standardize organizational procedures has improved cancer care in recent years. However, the involvement of “authentic” patients and caregivers in quality improvement of these predetermined pathways is in its infancy, especially the scholarly reflection on this process. We, therefore, aim to explore the multidisciplinary challenges both in practice, when cancer patients, their caregivers, and a multidisciplinary team of professionals work together on quality improvement, as well as in our research team, in which a social scientist, health care professionals, health care researchers, and experience experts design a research project together. Methods and design: Experience-based co-design will be used to involve cancer patients and their caregivers in a qualitative research design. In-depth open discovery interviews with 12 colorectal cancer patients, 12 breast cancer patients, and seven patients with cancer-associated thrombosis and their caregivers, and focus group discussions with professionals from various disciplines will be conducted. During the subsequent prioritization events and various co-design quality improvement meetings, observational field notes will be made on the multidisciplinary challenges these participants face in the process of co-design, and evaluation interviews will be done afterwards. Similar data will be collected during the monthly meetings of our multidisciplinary research team. The data will be analyzed according to the constant comparative method. Discussion: This study may facilitate quality improvement programs in oncologic care pathways, by increasing our real-world knowledge about the challenges of involving “experience experts” together with a team of multidisciplinary professionals in the implementation process of quality improvement. Such co-creation might be challenging due to the traditional paternalistic relationship, actual disease-/treatment-related constraints, and a lack of shared language and culture between patients, caregivers, and professionals and between professionals from various disciplines. These challenges have to be met in order to establish equality, respect, team spirit, and eventual meaningful participation.
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