JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Knowledge of how to design digital systems that are ergonomically sound, with high usability and optimized for the user, context, and task, has existed for some time. Despite this, there are still too many examples of new digital healthcare systems that are poorly designed and that could negatively affect both healthcare staff work environment and patient safety. This could be because of a gap between the theoretical knowledge of design and ergonomics and the practical implementation of this knowledge in procuring and developing digital healthcare systems. Furthermore, discussions of digitalization are often at a general level and risk neglecting the nature of direct interaction with the digital system. This is problematic since it is at this detailed level that work environment and patient safety issues materialize in practice. In this Viewpoint, these problems are illustrated with two scenarios concerned with contemporary electronic healthcare records based on field studies in two healthcare settings. We argue that current methods and tools for designing and evaluating digital systems in healthcare must cater both to the holistic level and to the details of interaction and ergonomics. It must also be acknowledged that healthcare professionals are neither designers nor engineers, so expectations of them during the development of digital systems must be realistic. We suggest three paths toward a more sustainable digital work environment in healthcare: 1) better tools for evaluating the digital work environment in the field; 2) generic formulations of qualitative requirements related to usability and to adaptation to the user, context, and task, to be used in procurement; and 3) the introduction of digital ergonomics as an embracing concept capturing several of the ergonomic challenges (including physical, cognitive, and organizational aspects) involved in implementing and using digital systems.