Use of clinical simulation for assessment in EHR-procurement: design of method

In Denmark, two large regions cooperate in a public intervention process of acquiring a new eHealth-platform to support the daily clinical work of approximately 40,000 users in 14 hospitals. It is essential that the new platform, besides fulfilling comprehensive detailed specifications, supports the daily work practice consisting of numerous mixed tasks executed by many different clinical actors in various settings. Within health informatics it has proven beneficial to use human factors approaches in the design process to secure systems that are responsive to the actual field of application. While design methods are widely described, there are very limited descriptions of how to assess and compare different EHR-platforms and their support in work processes upon its procurement. This paper describes the method we have developed to undertake this task. It is discussed how the method differs and how it has been adjusted from existing assessment methods. Finally, future considerations are discussed.