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Chapter 3. Pilot Studies: Lessons Learned from Early Projects
3.3.2 Understanding the Doctors
Our goal was to cooperate with doctors as close as possible right from the beginning
of the project. We tried to understand the doctors’ work by interviewing them,
by observing them, and by discussing our intermediate conclusions with them on
regular basis.
To get an impression of their openness towards technology, we started with an inter-
view, in which we asked two doctors about their work and their use of computers,
PDA’s, etc.
As a second step, one researcher spent three entire days on-site with the doctors
in the hospital, followed the doctors in their everyday work, and took notes. In
the end, this lead to a detailed description of the doctor’s daily work which we
and the doctors could agree upon. After each step we wrote our impressions down
and discussed these documents with them. These discussions generally took several
iterations, as the doctors occasionally contradicted themselves about the correctness
of our impressions. Nevertheless, this provided valuable insight in the doctors’ actual
daily routine.
Figure 3.5: Status Examination
Our findings were that when a patient comes to the hospital, he is interviewed by a
doctor to summarize the patient’s health status and analyze his current disease. In
general, four principal tasks are performed. The patient is interviewed by a doctor
to firstly determine his current medical problem and to secondly take his medical
history (the so-called Anamnesis). This summary is generally two to four A4 pages
long. The anamnesis process includes going through a questionnaire and examining
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