Care Planner Information System, Assessment Example

Usability assessment seeks to determine the quality of a product from the perspective of its users. Usability in this sense refers to the level to which a product can be used to achieve specified goals and objectives with efficiency, effectiveness and in a satisfying manner. Usability assessment is also based on the context of the users. In this sense, how usable a system is will depend on the person using it, their level of skill, their objective and the environment in which they use it. Efficiency in the context of usability testing determines whether a user can achieve their desired objective in the shortest amount of time possible and with minimal effort. Effectiveness of the system means that a user requires minimal cognitive knowledge or assistance to achieve their goal. In essence, the goal of usability assessment is to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of a system, by a particular set of users in a given environment, to achieve specific goals and objectives. The product to be assessed may range from web applications, enterprise resource planning systems, mobile applications among other systems (Usability Assessment, 2013).

The Careplanner Information System is in this case the information system on which the usability test will be carried on. This information system is meant to help nurse case managers to provide the best care possible to their patients. The aim of this information system is to introduce a system that enables transparent communication among all case management tasks within the health institution. Such management tasks include disease management, care management and utilization management. This way, it will be possible to identify gaps in patient care and decreasing them through effective communication as well as enabling stratification of the of the population risk. The system has the capability to provide multi-channel communication. This it does by delivering personal health records, patient decision aids, health management tools, clinical content for health education and decision support tools at the point of care. It provides a highly required communication link between patients, clinicians, care givers and facility providers. This is essential for the success of the health facility.

To assess the usability of the system, the exercise will involve watching a case manager put the system to task in performing various activities. Through observation, it will then be possible to identify how effectively and efficiently the system serves the users goals. Areas that the user has difficulties to work through, either by being unable to complete a task or taking a long time to do so will be noted as areas with usability challenges in the system. To conduct this exercise, a template from Robert Schumacher and Svetlana Lowry’s Customized Common Industry Format Template for Electronic Health Record Usability Testing (2010) will be employed. From this tool, a series of tasks to be carried out by the Case Manager is outlined. From each task, the success of the user to accomplish the task is determined depending on the ease of accomplishing the task. Success is rated on a scale of one, whether the task is easily completed, two, whether the task is completed with difficulty noting where assistance was required and three, whether the task was not completed. Secondly, the time in seconds the user takes to complete the task is determined. Thirdly, the users optimal path to perform the task is also identified and it is determined whether the user used the correct path, had minor deviations from the correct path or whether there were major deviations from the correct path. Fourth, for every task, the users observed errors and comments are noted and lastly a rating for each task is given based on these factors.

Based on the objectives that the system is expected to accomplish, a set of tasks are outlined for the case manager. The very initial task entails getting the case managers perception of the system by determining what they perceive of the system and what they can identify at first impression. For the first task, the case manager is required to send an appointment reminder to a patient through the patient’s mobile phone. The case manager is then supposed to inspect a generated system log to determine if the message is sent successfully. In the second task, the case manager is required to register a patient at the reception and request/ send them for admission via the system. The case manager is then required to verify that this information has been received at the admissions floor via the system. The third task involves the case manager submitting information on a typical patients progress and seeing whether it is possible to follow up on this information via the system for other caregivers and facility providers. Typical examples of this include caregivers checking the patient’s clinical progress, clinicians prescribing drugs based on patients registered condition and facility providers dispensing prescribed drugs for the patients.

A first impression to a system determines how well a user can access system features to accomplish the required task. According to James Costa (2009), accessibility implies making an information system usable to users who may not be able to interact with the system like everyone else. The case manager is easily able to identify key features in the system since the outline is simple and basic. Sending of a notification to the user is simple for the case manager since it is based on a typical message sending format as is the case with emails. Notifications of successful sending of the message pops up on the system screen immediately the message is sent thus verification is straight forward. Registration of patients is based on a form, a particular entity especially in web applications and given the case managers prior computer experience, the task is easily and successfully completed. Task involving submitting information of the patients progress is consistent with registration of patient details. However, capabilities to undo or cancel specific actions is not provided in the system. This is noted across the second and third tasks of the exercise. Jakob Nielsen (1995) points out that users will frequently choose options by mistake and, therefore, insists that the possibility to undo and redo tasks should be inherent in a system.

In conclusion, the usability of a system is a major determinant of its success or failure in achieving its objectives. Usability assessment thus serves as a silver bullet in pointing out usability deficiencies in a system. The ability or inability to address issues raised by a usability assessment tests thus determines if a system effectively and efficiently serves its audience in a satisfactory manner.

References

Costa, J. (2009). Factors that Affect Usability. Six Revisions. Retrieved from http://sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/factors-that-affect-usability/

Nielsen, J. (1995). 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved from http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

(2013). Usability Assessment. eHealth Industries Innovation Centre. Retrieved from http://www.ehi2.swan.ac.uk/en/usability-testing.htm

Schumacher, R., Lowry, S. (2010). Customized Common Industry Format Template for Electronic Health Record Usability Testing. US Department of Commerce. V02. Pp. 31-37.