“The first takeaway for EHR vendors is to acknowledge the usability gap and work to close it. Another takeaway would be to consider the strength of using the system usability scale (SUS) for assessing their products,” said Melnick. “The 21st Century Cures Act mandates an EHR reporting program. Using the SUS for individual EHR tasks, and reporting and tracking these results could go a long way to close the usability gap in healthcare.”

He adds that the findings “are not surprising,” as physicians have faced these challenges for years and “feel their voices” have gone unheard. “I think it is interesting to see which medical specialties report more usable EHRs. I think this needs further study but the specialties that are low likely need improvements first. Although not directly related to our findings, adopting user-centered design is also vital … I hope that our findings will amplify their voices to get the necessary attention from not only vendors, but also policy makers in this space, and organization leaders responsible for local implementation of EHRs.”


The findings were published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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