Collaborative practice: usability of text-based, electronic patient care guidelines.

The Intermountain Healthcare system has developed a text-based, electronic reference system for nonphysician staff to provide patient care guidelines intended to reduce variability in bedside care processes and improve patient outcomes. Implementation issues with two interface tools used to deploy the electronic documents at the bedside have caused difficulty with document accessibility. A third interface tool (Viewer) was designed to solve the accessibility problems. This study was designed to compare the time spent searching for information and success of information retrieval from all three interfaces before clinical deployment of the Viewer interface. Study results were used by nursing leadership in a decision to continue supporting the electronic dissemination of text-based practice guidelines for nonphysician staff within our health system's acute care settings.