Ergonomics of communication in a medical emergency dispatch center

‘Physical ergonomics’ and ‘cognitive ergonomics’ are two well-established disciplines. On the contrary ‘social ergonomics’ is still a neglected one. The latter deals with the ways to improve the affordance of everyday activity not only by focusing on physical artefacts or human cognitive/mental processes, but also observing interactions, ceremonials, rituals, routines and communications among participants. Following the approaches of ‘social ergonomics’ and ‘computer-supported cooperative work’ (CSCW), the paper will present the results of a team ethnography carried out in two medical emergency dispatch centers. These handle calls to an emergency telephone number which varies according to the country: 999 in the UK and Ireland; 911 in the USA and Canada; 118 in Italy, 112 in Sweden and so on. Observing the co-operative work among call takers and medical staff, we show ethnographic details about: the concept of ‘situated communication’, the interactional strategy for finding a ambulance, the hypothesis that the attention is primarily a body activity instead of a cognitive process. The final proposal is to show, through ethnographic evidence, how ‘old’ or analogical technologies (spoken, non-verbal, face-to-face) are anything but obsolete and sometimes more useful, fast and efficacy than digital ones.