Clinical Simulation: Evaluating the Usability of a Health Information System in a Telenurse Call Centre

Telenursing is a specialized subset of nursing practice that has emerged in response to the development of health care technology. Telenurses use health information systems (HIS) as their main source of health information in order to assist callers with their health related concerns on the telephone. In order to ensure that the telenurse-caller encounter supports a safe, appropriate and patient focused outcome, it was important to evaluate the usability of (HIS) that telenurses use. The purpose of this paper is to describe usability issues that emerged during a clinical simulation study of nurses working in a call centre. Clinical simulation was thus chosen as the most comprehensive methodology in this study and its benefits will be discussed.