Applying usability heuristics to radiotherapy systems
| Autor: | Tara Rosewall, David A. Jaffray, Alvita J. Chan, Mohammad K. Islam, Anthony C. Easty, Joseph A Cafazzo |
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| Rok vydání: | 2010 |
| Předmět: |
medicine.medical_specialty
Safety Management Quality Assurance Health Care Computer science Process (engineering) Patient safety User-Computer Interface Record and verify Heuristic evaluation medicine Humans Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging Medical physics Man-Machine Systems Equipment Safety Medical Errors Radiotherapy business.industry Usability Hematology Equipment Failure Analysis Usability goals Oncology Usability heuristics User interface Particle Accelerators business Software |
| Zdroj: | Radiotherapy and oncology : journal of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. 102(1) |
| ISSN: | 1879-0887 |
| Popis: | Background and purpose Heuristic evaluations have been used to evaluate safety of medical devices by identifying and assessing usability issues. Since radiotherapy treatment delivery systems often consist of multiple complex user-interfaces, a heuristic evaluation was conducted to assess the potential safety issues of such a system. Material and methods A heuristic evaluation was conducted to evaluate the treatment delivery system at Princess Margaret Hospital (Toronto, Canada). Two independent evaluators identified usability issues with the user-interfaces and rated the severity of each issue. Results The evaluators identified 75 usability issues in total. Eighteen of them were rated as high severity, indicating the potential to have a major impact on patient safety. A majority of issues were found on the record and verify system, and many were associated with the patient setup process. While the hospital has processes in place to ensure patient safety, recommendations were developed to further mitigate the risks of potential consequences. Conclusions Heuristic evaluation is an efficient and inexpensive method that can be successfully applied to radiotherapy delivery systems to identify usability issues and improve patient safety. Although this study was conducted only at one site, the findings may have broad implications for the design of these systems. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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