Background

Electronic Medical Record Systems (EMRs) are now part of nursing and medical professionals daily work in the acute and primary care sectors in Australia. Usability is an important factor in their successful adoption and impacts upon clinical workflow, safety and quality, communication, and collaboration. This study replicates a significant body of work conducted by Finnish researchers applying a usability focused survey to understand medical and nursing professionals’ experiences in the Australian context. As we implement EMRs across health systems, their usability and design to support clinicians to effectively deliver and document care, is essential.

Methods

We conducted an observational study using a cross sectional survey, the National Usability-Focused HIS Scale (NuHISS) developed and validated by Finnish researchers. For this study 13 usability statements collected clinician impressions of EMRs related to technical quality, ease of use, benefits, and collaboration. We report the responses from medical and nursing professionals working in clinical practice settings in Australia, including primary care and hospital sectors in 2020.

Results

Nursing and medical professionals have different experiences with EMR usability. This depends on the sector they work in and the usability feature measured. In our sample, technical quality features were more positively experienced by doctors in the primary care sector than nurses as well as ease of obtaining patient information and prevention of errors. In the hospital sector nurses experiences with EMRs were more positive with respect to support for routine task completion, learnability, ease of obtaining patient information and entry of patient data.

Conclusions

The NuHISS is a suitable tool for measuring the usability experiences of Australian clinicians and the EMRs utilised. Differences in usability experiences were noted between professional groups and sectors. A focus on the usability perspectives of clinicians when enhancing or developing EMR solutions is advocated.

中文翻译：

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一项全国 EMR 可用性调查：澳大利亚和芬兰医院和初级保健部门的医疗和护理专业之间的比较

背景

电子病历系统 (EMR) 现在是澳大利亚急症和初级保健部门的护理和医疗专业人员日常工作的一部分。可用性是其成功采用和影响临床工作流程、安全和质量、沟通和协作的重要因素。这项研究复制了芬兰研究人员进行的大量工作，应用以可用性为重点的调查来了解医疗和护理专业人员在澳大利亚的经历。当我们在整个卫生系统中实施 EMR 时，它们的可用性和设计对于支持临床医生有效提供和记录护理至关重要。

方法

我们使用横断面调查进行了一项观察性研究，即由芬兰研究人员开发和验证的国家可用性聚焦 HIS 量表 (NuHIS)。在本研究中，13 份可用性声明收集了临床医生对 EMR 的技术质量、易用性、优势和协作的印象。我们报告了 2020 年在澳大利亚临床实践环境中工作的医疗和护理专业人员的回应，包括初级保健和医院部门。

结果

护理和医疗专业人员在 EMR 可用性方面有不同的经验。这取决于他们工作的部门和衡量的可用性功能。在我们的样本中，初级保健部门的医生比护士更积极地体验技术质量特征，以及获取患者信息的便利性和预防错误。在医院部门，护士使用 EMR 的体验在支持常规任务完成、可学习性、获取患者信息的便利性和患者数据输入方面更为积极。

结论

NuHISS 是衡量澳大利亚临床医生的可用性体验和使用的 EMR 的合适工具。注意到专业团体和部门之间可用性体验的差异。提倡在增强或开发 EMR 解决方案时关注临床医生的可用性观点。