Usability Enhancements to a Prototype Clinical Decision Support System for Combat Medics

Introduction A Clinical Decision Support System that provides just-in-time medical guidance at the point of injury is being developed. To develop a user interface, a user-centered design approach was taken. Materials and Methods To evaluate the system, personas of the users were created, a comparative analysis of the system against the Tactical Combat Casualty Care Card and Battlefield Assisted Trauma Distributed Observation Kit was completed, and user testing was performed. Results Many design recommendations were gathered from the user-centered design approach including replacing buttons with a homunculus, replacing prompts with a tree and node system, and allowing more user freedom in working with the system. Conclusions Through multiple different evaluations, design recommendations for a clinical decision support system were implemented in an iterative process. More iterations and more formalized user testing are planned to maximize the usability of the system.