A study of physicians' interaction with text-based and graphical-based electronic patient record systems

The interaction style used in electronic patient record (EPR) systems and its usability can have a significant impact on the acceptance, efficiency and satisfaction of its users. In this paper, we describe a study of physician interaction with a text-based EPR system and a graphical-based EPR system. The usability attributes of learnability, efficiency and satisfaction are evaluated on typical tasks, such as viewing a patient's record, documenting and ordering. The results of the study revealed that a graphical-based interface can significantly reduce the time it takes physicians to complete typical tasks in comparison with a text-based interface. The results of the study also revealed that physicians can get more satisfaction from interacting with a graphical-based EPR system than with a text-based system.