Information Chaos in Primary Care: Implications for Physician Performance and Patient Safety

TLDR

Additional research is needed to define methods to measure and eventually reduce information chaos. The article explores information chaos in primary care, its impact on patient safety and physician workload, and proposes a research agenda. The authors employ a human‑factors engineering perspective to examine information chaos and its implications for physician performance and patient safety. Information chaos, defined by overload, underload, scatter, conflict, and erroneous data, routinely burdens primary‑care physicians, impairs mental workload and situation awareness, and threatens patient safety, prompting the authors to suggest solutions and a research agenda.

Abstract

<h3>Purpose:</h3> The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of information chaos as it applies to the issues of patient safety and physician workload in primary care and to propose a research agenda. <h3>Methods:</h3> We use a human factors engineering perspective to discuss the concept of information chaos in primary care and explore implications for its impact on physician performance and patient safety. <h3>Results:</h3> Information chaos is comprised of various combinations of information overload, information underload, information scatter, information conflict, and erroneous information. We provide a framework for understanding information chaos, its impact on physician mental workload and situation awareness, and its consequences, and we discuss possible solutions and suggest a research agenda that may lead to methods to reduce the problem. <h3>Conclusions:</h3> Information chaos is experienced routinely by primary care physicians. This is not just inconvenient, annoying, and frustrating; it has implications for physician performance and patient safety. Additional research is needed to define methods to measure and eventually reduce information chaos.