Usability evaluation of a guideline implementation system for cardiac rehabilitation: think aloud study

Guidelines on cardiac rehabilitation (CR) state that a patient-tailored, comprehensive CR programme should be constructed for each patient based on a structured needs assessment procedure. We performed a usability evaluation with seven end-users of the MediScore CARDSS 2.0 system which implements such a procedure based on the Dutch guidelines. The analysis showed that users deviated strongly from the predefined data entry order; could not complete all subtasks for a complete needs assessment procedure, and needed more navigation actions than minimally required. We conclude that the design model of systems which implement guidelines requiring data entry should adapt to users' mental model concerning data entry to guarantee complete data collection.