EHR Usability on Mobile Devices EHR Usability on Mobile Devices

Currently, minimal requirements exist for assessing the usability of electronic health record (EHR) systems. Usability requirements are especially lacking for the increasing use of mobile devices to access EHRs. Therefore, the authors investigated the usability of three commercially available certified ambulatory EHR systems as accessed on mobile devices. The study used the System Usability Scale (SUS) among a sample of college-level health professions students. Twenty-seven students participated in the study. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) using bootstrapped sampling demonstrated that the EHR system specifically built for mobile devices had significantly higher usability scores, graduate students were more likely to rate the usability of EHR systems higher than undergraduate students, and there was a significant relationship between the evaluator’s prior use of EHR systems and usability scores. These findings suggest that usability requirements for all EHR platforms should be required and that students should be trained on and exposed to EHRs early in their education.