Considerations on the Usability of SClínico

Abstract

To increase the quality of the health care services and, at the same time, to control their costs, the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) has substantially increased during the last years. Usability of EHR systems is a key factor to increase their efficiency. The SClínico is an EHR system widely used in public hospitals and primary care centres of the Portuguese National Health Service and the present article reports the assessment of its usability. This usability assessment consisted in three stages: in the first stage, an exploratory assessment was carried out, while in the second stage a quantitative assessment was performed using a validated usability assessment instrument, and, finally, in the third stage a focus group involving clinicians and usability experts was conducted. The results showed that SClínico presents important usability issues and, therefore, recommendations are suggested to overcome the identified issues.