Ducky and Sherman's CSCW Project 3: Spinal Rounds

Sherman and Ducky will observe a videoconference of Canadian orthopedic surgeons, and interview two or three of the participants at a later date. Our goal in this fieldwork is identify limitations in and strengths of the current practices.

About the conference

This videoconference, called "Spinal Rounds", is designed to be similar to the daily rounds that doctors, residents, and interns make on a daily basis: a group of doctors gets together and discusses cases. Unlike normal rounds, which are done in the patients' rooms, doctors from all over Canada meet and discuss via telepresence software.

Objectives

Our objective will be to report on how the Spinal Rounds group interacts with technology: what problems arise from their use of technology and what things work well; to gain an understanding of the goals of the group in order to assess the effectiveness of the group's current practices and the appropriateness of the current technology.

Our focal points are:

1. How does the speaker indicate to others what visual artifact he/she is referring to?
2. How do the participants manage turn-taking?
3. How does the physical layout affect the collaboration?
4. How do status levels affect the collaboration?
5. How do they manage screen real estate?

Future work

Kelly has futher ideas for things that are outside the scope of the project, but which would be nice. In addition to simply strengthening the relationship between UBC-CS and the Children's Hospital, he would be pleased if we could:

• present recommendations to the Childrens' Hospital with our findings
• turn our class report into a tech report
• lay the groundwork for a future thesis or dissertation

Methods of data collection

Sherman and Ducky will observe the BC side of the conference, which meets in a doctor's office at Children's Hospital in Vancouver.

This observation will take place on Friday, 4 November, and include observing setup and teardown of the teleconference equipment as well as the actual Spinal Rounds meeting. The Spinal Rounds meeting itself will probably last over an hour.

Based on information from Kelly's previous observations, we expect that three to five doctors/staff will be at the Children's Hospital site.

Sherman and Ducky will take written notes but will not record the audio or video. A video archive of the session may or may not be available to us. All aspects of patient confidentiality will be adhered to via telepresence, and will be further followed through via Sherman and Ducky’s observations. With consent of the participants, Sherman and Ducky will take a few flashless photos with Ducky's digital camera.

We plan to do two or three short (15-30 minute) followup interviews.

Research protocol

We will focus on the local participants. We will be covered as collaborators under the UBC ethics guidelines, building upon Kelly's existing history of collaboration with the Children's Hospital doctors. (Being doctors, these participants are also very familiar with consent and privacy issues.)

While we do not have followup interviews arranged and/or scheduled, Kelly assures us that the doctors are cooperative and are extremely likely to grant followup interviews.

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