How Usability Information Can Improve Clinical Information Systems  

This paper describes a usability engineering program of integrated laboratory and ethnographic studies for collecting user data about a clinical information system. The authors evaluated MIRACLE (Medical Information Retrieval Application for Clinical Enhancement), developed by Philips Medical Systems; physicians and allied health personnel can access MIRACLE from their offices to obtain data about their patients who use hospital services. After an initial heuristic evaluation, we conducted two usability tests and weekly ethnographic interviews with physicians and hospital staff during the software alpha test. Our experience resulted in guidelines for conducting usability programs with medical professionals.

Rosenbaum, Stephanie L., Deborah Hinderer and Phillip Scarborough. Tec-Ed, Inc. (1999). Articles>Usability>Biomedical