Clinical evidence at the point of care in acute medicine: a handheld usability case study

The need to design medical information device interfaces for clinical use has been well documented in medical journals. In this study we apply well known usability techniques such as user requirement elicitation and prototype design and evaluation to design an evidencebased medical information retrieval system intended for a wireless environment. Our immediate goal is to make the daily practice of evidencebased medicine (EBM) for frontline clinicians easier by providing relevant, timely information at the point of care (using a wireless PDA device), delivered in a format that is usable and liked by the target group. Our objective is to use this evidence-based information delivery tool as an educational device and to encourage clinicians to consult, as appropriate, the latest best evidence available to support their clinical decision in hopes of improving clinical outcomes. The development of a handheld user interface for clinicians is described, along with results obtained from usability testing with a sample set of scenarios