Usability Evaluation of Clinician Web Back-Ends to Telemonitoring Systems: Two Case-Studies in Scotland

One of the reasons why large scale deployment of telemedicine has not been successful is the difficulty healthcare workers have in managing the software. Good usability is essential to the success of a telemedicine solution. By ensuring that user needs are efficiently and effectively respected, usability encourages user acceptance and reduces the need for support. However, little is known about what healthcare workers require from telemedicine systems in terms of how patient acquired data is displayed and interrogated. This paper describes the results of a post-implementation investigation of the clinician web 'back-ends' of two telemedicine systems used for the monitoring of long-term conditions in Lothian, Scotland, focusing on the features healthcare workers would like to see in future systems. We conducted semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to ascertain the views of healthcare workers who had been using the systems. The results of the evaluation were used to design a new prototype generic telemonitoring website which we offered to participants to demonstrate possible improvements and to further seek their views. The prototype was very well received, participants considering that it was easier to use and more user friendly than the system that they had been using.