HOW CAN USABILITY MEASUREMENT AFFECT THE REENGINEERING PROCESS OF CLINICAL SOFTWARE PROCEDURES

As a consequence of the dramatic improvements achieved in information technology standards in terms of single hardware and software componen ts, efforts in the evaluation processes have been focused on the asses sment of critical human factors, such as work-flow organisation, man-m achine interaction and, in general, quality of use, or usability. This trend is particularly valid when applied to medical informatics, sinc e the human component is the basis of the information processing syste m in health care context. With the aim to establish an action-research project on the evaluation and assessment of clinical software procedu res which constitute an integrated hospital information system, the au thors adopted this strategy and considered the measurement of perceive d usability as one of the main goals of the project itself: the paper reports the results of this experience. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Irel and Ltd. All rights reserved.