Evaluating the usability of a national health information system with heuristic method
نویسندگان
1 Health Information Management Department, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Management and Health Information Technology, School of Management and Medical Information, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
3 Health Information Management Research Center, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran, 4 Clinical Research Development Unit of Farshchian Heart Center, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran
4 Health Information Management Department, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Clinical Research Development Unit of Farshchian Heart Center, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran
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doi
چکیده
BACKGROUND: Hospital Statistics and Information System is one of the most important healthinformation systems in Iran used in all hospitals in this country. Usability problems can reduce thespeed and precision of users when interacting with this system. This study aimed to identify theusability problems of a national health system called “AVAB”.MATERIALS AND METHODS: This descriptive cross‑sectional study was conducted in 2020, andthree experts evaluated the usability of this system independently by the heuristic evaluation method.Nielsen’s usability principles were used to identify usability problems and to classify their severity.RESULTS: A total of 86 unique problems were identified. The highest number of problems wererelated to the two principles of “help and documentation” and “match between system and the realworld” with 23 and 11 usability problems, respectively. The lowest number of problems were relatedto the two principles of “visibility of system status” and “help users recognize, diagnose, and recoverfrom errors,” each with three problems. 58.1% of the identified problems were in the group of majorand catastrophic problems.CONCLUSIONS: With the help of heuristic evaluation method, a significant number of usabilityproblems of Hospital Statistics and Information System were identified. Most of the identified problemswere major and catastrophic, and it is necessary to solve these problems by the designers anddevelopers of this system.
