• Madhu C Reddy, Sharoda A Paul, Joanna Abraham, Michael McNeese, Christopher DeFlitch, and John Yen.
• College of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802-6823, USA. mreddy@ist.psu.edu
• Int J Med Inform. 2009 Apr 1;78(4):259-69.

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to identify the major challenges to coordination between emergency department (ED) teams and emergency medical services (EMS) teams.DesignWe conducted a series of focus groups involving both ED and EMS team members using a crisis scenario as the basis of the focus group discussion. We also collected organizational workflow data.ResultsWe identified three major challenges to coordination between ED and EMS teams including ineffectiveness of current information and communication technologies, lack of common ground, and breakdowns in information flow.DiscussionThe three challenges highlight the importance of designing systems from socio-technical perspective. In particular, these inter-team coordination systems must support socio-technical issues such as awareness, context, and workflow between the two teams.

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