Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States; Salt Lake City Veterans Health Administration, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States.
Int J Med Inform. 2018 Mar;111:37-44. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.12.010. Epub 2017 Dec 15.
With electronic health records (EHRs) becoming ubiquitous, computer use in exam rooms during patient-provider interactions is commonplace. Although computer use brings many benefits to providers, and patients generally rate computer-use as having a positive impact, the use of mobile devices could eliminate existing issues, for example allowing providers to enter or review records while face-to-face with patients. Using mobile devices increases flexibility of providers, but also creates challenges associated with the mobile device itself. For example, the form factor (i.e., display size) of the mobile device may affect provider performance, satisfaction and usability of the EHR. This study assessed the impact of the device form factor on usability of the EHR by measuring the most commonly used devices. This question relates to the applicability of Fitts' law, which does not predict differences in usability of devices varying in their form factor, assuming a linear scaling of the user interface.
Health care providers participated in this study by performing common EHR related tasks using devices differing in their form factor. Each participant performed these tasks on each of the devices. Interaction with a desktop computer served as baseline.
Usability and task load ratings for all mobile devices were significantly lower than for the desktop. Among the mobile devices, the iPad with its largest form factors performed best, where the iPhone performed the worst. The time to complete the tasks revealed that the mobile devices took more time to complete the tasks with the iPad requiring the least time among the mobile devices. Finally, in terms of error rates, all mobile devices had a significantly higher error rate than the desktop control. Again, the lowest error rate was observed with the devices that had the largest form factor.
The results of this study suggest that the form factor of mobile devices is of critical importance for usability and task performance with none of the mobile devices performing as well as the desktop. In addition, it appears that Fitt's law requires some additional examination in the context of touch screen devices. Given these results, challenges associated with mobile access to the EHR exist that need to be addressed in the future.
随着电子健康记录（EHR）的普及，在医患互动期间，医生在诊室中使用计算机已变得很常见。尽管计算机的使用给医生带来了很多好处，而且患者通常认为计算机的使用具有积极影响，但移动设备的使用可以消除现有问题，例如允许医生在与患者面对面时输入或查看记录。使用移动设备增加了医生的灵活性，但也带来了与移动设备本身相关的挑战。例如，移动设备的形式因素（即显示尺寸）可能会影响医生对 EHR 的使用性能、满意度和可用性。本研究通过测量最常用的设备来评估设备形式因素对 EHR 可用性的影响。这个问题涉及到菲茨定律的适用性，该定律假设用户界面呈线性缩放，不预测在其形式因素不同的设备上可用性的差异。
通过使用形式因素不同的设备执行常见的 EHR 相关任务，医疗保健提供者参与了这项研究。每位参与者都在每个设备上执行了这些任务。与台式计算机的交互作为基准。
所有移动设备的可用性和任务负载评分均明显低于台式计算机。在移动设备中，具有最大形式因素的 iPad 表现最好，而 iPhone 表现最差。完成任务所需的时间表明，移动设备完成任务所需的时间更长，而 iPad 则需要移动设备中最短的时间。最后，在错误率方面，所有移动设备的错误率都明显高于台式机控制。同样，具有最大形式因素的设备观察到的错误率最低。
这项研究的结果表明，移动设备的形式因素对可用性和任务性能至关重要，没有任何移动设备的性能与台式机一样好。此外，在触摸屏幕设备的上下文中，菲茨定律似乎需要进一步研究。考虑到这些结果，未来需要解决与移动访问 EHR 相关的挑战。
