Top Ten Principles for Ensuring Usability in Mobile Health Implementations by Hal Miller-Jacobs, PhD, CPE, Usability Coach

1. Usability:
A Critical Component of the
mHealth Initative
Hal Miller-Jacobs PhD, CPE, CUA
Usability Coach

2. Certification Commission for Health
Information Technology
Criteria for Certification:
Functionality
Interoperability
Security

3. Any Missing Criteria?

4. Functionality
Interoperability
Security
Usability

5. Functionality
Interoperability
Security
Usability - Particularly
Critical to
Mobile Health
Devices

6. Why is Usability for Mobile
devices so critical?
Limited communications bandwidth:
Much smaller display screen
Fewer options available on smaller screen
Less than ideal environment
Greater chance of error

7. Remember this?

8. The Usability Process
Identifying Users
Physicians
Nurses
Patients
Pharmacists
Payers
………

9. The Usability Process
Identifying their needs
e.g., Physicians:
ePrescribing
Record observations
Review test data
…

10. The Usability Process (cont.)
Developing scenarios and uses cases
Converting these to mobile
implementation possibilities
Developing prototypes
Review by experts (?)

11. The Infamous Palm Beach Ballot
Reviewed by ‘experts’!

12. The Usability Process (cont.)
Perform Usability Evaluations with
actual users on non-functional
prototypes
Refine prototype
Reevaluate

15. In Conclusion
Mobile Health devices present a new
horizon in providing quality health
services in a secure, cost-effective and
more timely manner
However they require far more
attention to Usability issues than even
EMR systems

16. Thank You
hal@UsabilityCoach.com
617.504.8587