Challenges in Applying a Participatory Approach in a Nation-wide Project -The Case of ‘Usability of Swedish eHealth Systems 2013’

• Many healthcare organizations are currently committed to organizational change and quality improvement projects. Unfortunately, little effort is put into health information system development according to usability requirements and methodology, leading to bottlenecks in the eHealth systems when implemented into daily practice. This paper presents the experiences of applying a participatory approach in a nation-wide project. The aim of this national initiative was to build usability of eHealth systems into the Swedish national eHealth strategy and its action plan to ensure impact on practice. Action researchers within the health informatics domain collaborated with representatives of different care professions to propose high-priority changes necessary to improve the usability of health information systems. Reflections from the first phase of this initiative are further explored in terms of methodological challenges and recommendations, whereof one recommendation is to increase the use of HI-U specialists – health informaticians with usability and human work interaction design expertise within national and local eHealth development.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Participatory design

human-computer interaction

nation-wide deployment

eHealth strategy

future workshop

user representatives

Technology

Teknik

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)