Considerations of Interface Efficiency in Scaling up Telehealthcare Systems

One of the most important promises of telehealthcare is that of increasing care provider productivity in managing patients, which is essential for dealing with the changing demographics. Amongst other factors, this is currently put to the test by several European projects trialling large scale implementations of telehealthcare systems. Any minor interface problem which affects productivity at small scale may prevent a care provider from managing more patients at large scale. This makes interface efficiency, a component of its usability, an essential criterion to consider in the evaluation of telehealthcare. This paper describes a post-deployment usability evaluation study of a telehealthcare system conducted in Lothian, Scotland, the findings of which revealed important efficiency issues. Using these findings, and experience from two older studies, it concludes on interface design decisions which could be taken to avoid efficiency issues for telehealthcare solutions.