A longitudinal study of usability in health care - does time heal?

We report from a longitudinal laboratory-based usability evaluation of a health care information system. A usability evaluation was conducted with novice users when an electronic patient record system was being deployed in a large hospital. After the nurses had used the system in their daily work for 15 months, we repeated the evaluation. Our aim was to inquire into the nature of usability problems experienced by novice and expert users, and to see to what extend usability problems of a health care information system may or may not disappear over time, as the nurses get more familiar with it - if time heals poor design. On the basis of our study, we present findings on the usability of the electronic patient system as experienced by the nurses at these two different points in time and discuss implications for evaluating usability in health care.