Information system design for a hospital emergency department: A usability analysis of software prototypes

  • Authors:

  • Adem Karahoca;Erkan Bayraktar;Ekrem Tatoglu;Dilek Karahoca

  • Affiliations:

  • Faculty of Engineering, Bahcesehir University, Besiktas, Istanbul 34349, Turkey;Faculty of Engineering, Bahcesehir University, Besiktas, Istanbul 34349, Turkey;Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Bahcesehir University, Besiktas, Istanbul 34349, Turkey;Faculty of Engineering, Bahcesehir University, Besiktas, Istanbul 34349, Turkey

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Biomedical Informatics
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Study objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usability of emergency department (ED) software prototypes developed for Tablet personal computers (Tablet PCs) in order to keep electronic health records (EHRs) of patients errorless and accessible through mobile technologies. In order to serve this purpose, two alternative prototypes were developed for Tablet PCs: Mobile Emergency Department Software (MEDS) and Mobile Emergency Department Software Iconic (MEDSI) among which the user might choose the more appropriate one for ED operations based on a usability analysis involving the target users. Methods: The study is based on a case study of 32 potential users of our prototypes at the ED of Kadikoy-AHG in Istanbul, Turkey. We examined usability of the prototypes for medical information systems by means of Nielsen's heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthrough methods relying on 7-point scales, and scenario completion success rate and average scenario completion time, respectively. Results: The implementation of MEDSI in our case study confirmed the view that the usability evaluation results of iconic GUIs were better than those of non-iconic GUIs in terms of Nielsen's heuristic evaluation, effectiveness and user satisfaction. For the whole sample, paired t-test scores indicated that there was a significant difference (p