Using Health Information Exchange: Usability and Usefulness Evaluation

Health information exchange (HIE) is implemented in Quebec, Canada to improve the exchange and use of clinical information for decision making in the province's health care system. The objective of this mixed-method approach study was to evaluate the usage, usability, and usefulness of an electronic health record (EHR) to access and import clinical information from a centralized HIE. First, a heuristic analysis was performed of three different commercial EHRs, using end users to analyze the integration feature through think aloud protocols. Second, interviews were conducted with advanced users to describe the usefulness. Third, usage data were analyzed to describe the level of use of each data domain, per EHR and user. The results show that usefulness is high for medication data; leading to greater use of this domain, its relation to integration, and meets the needs of general practitioners. Difficulties in the implementation processes reduced the potential of this system.