Design and Evaluation of an Anesthesia Decision Support Mobile Application

Anesthesia is one of the processes in which medication error is common. One of the most frequent medication errors in anesthesia is the error in calculating the dose of drugs. Decision support systems are one of the available solutions to reduce these errors. The purpose of this study was to design and evaluate an anesthesia decision support mobile application to assist anesthesiologists to choose the right and timely prescription of drugs.

This practical cross-sectional study was conducted in three stages including needs assessment, design, and evaluation. The needs assessment of this mobile app was performed using semi-structured interviews with physicians. After drawing the initial design, the mobile app was developed for the Android operating system, and in the end, it was evaluated based on accuracy and speed of calculation indicators.

The output of the interviews was classified into three categories including physicians’ views on the need to develop the app, the expected facilities and capabilities of the app, and the information content of the app. The evaluation results of this app showed that in all groups, except the expert group, the calculation time required by physicians was longer than the one by the mobile app. Moreover, the highest number of correct answers was given by the app user group and then the fourth-year resident group.

An anesthesia decision support mobile app for physicians can significantly increase the accuracy and speed of physicians’ medication calculations. So far, no anesthesia mobile app has been developed in Iran according to valid international guidelines. Therefore, the results of this study can be taken into consideration by health service providers.