Development and evaluation of a novel user interface for reviewing clinical microbiology results

Abstract

Background: Microbiology laboratory results are complex and cumbersome to review. We sought to develop a new review tool to improve the ease and accuracy of microbiology results review. Methods: We observed and informally interviewed clinicians to determine areas in which existing microbiology review tools were lacking. We developed a new tool that reorganizes microbiology results by time and organism. We conducted a scenario-based usability evaluation to compare the new tool to existing legacy tools, using a balanced block design. Results: The average time-on-task decreased from 45.3 min for the legacy tools to 27.1 min for the new tool (P