Evaluation of the Usability of Healthcare Systems

Dear Colleagues,

A wide range of healthcare information systems are being deployed worldwide, ranging from electronic health records to clinical decision support, emerging applications of AI as well as many patient-facing applications. However, a variety of issues and challenges remain regarding the usability of many of these systems and applications in healthcare. There continue to be reports of systems that are deemed unusable by the end users, that have been perceived as adding to workload (rather than reducing it) and that may inadvertently lead to unsafe healthcare. Usability and user experience are now recognized as being critical areas for evaluation in order to improve adoption, efficiency and user satisfaction of healthcare systems. The evaluation of usability and user experience has become an essential component in deploying healthcare systems that are effective, safe and that will ultimately be adopted by end users. Along these lines, there is a need for scientific approaches for evaluating the usability of healthcare information systems. Central to this is the development of evaluation methods and approaches that can practically inform design (and redesign) of healthcare systems. Methods and approaches vary from in-depth qualitative usability testing approaches, to ethnography and remote analysis of users, to automated analysis of both health providers and patients involved in virtual healthcare.

In this special issue we invite a range of papers that consider advances in the evaluation of the usability of healthcare systems. New research papers, short communications, perspectives articles and reviews are all welcome in this special issue. The issue aims to bring together work that critically examines approaches to the evaluation of usability and user experience from multiple perspectives. This includes work in the area of human factors, applications of usability engineering and design science, as well as regulatory issues related to evaluation and certification of healthcare information systems. In this issue we invite submissions that provide insight into advancing research, practice and methodology for evaluating the usability of healthcare information systems.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Andre Kushniruk
Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Borycki
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.