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Open Access
CC BY 4.0 · ACI open 2024; 08(01): e1-e9
DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1779698
Research Article

User-centered Design and Formative Evaluation of a Web Application to Collect and Visualize Real-time Clinician Well-being Levels

Authors

  • Derek Shu

    1   Department of Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
    2   Medical Doctorate Program, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

  • Catherine T. Xu

    1   Department of Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
    2   Medical Doctorate Program, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

  • Somya Pandey

    1   Department of Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
    3   Medical Sciences Baccalaureate Program, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

  • Virginia Walls

    4   University of Cincinnati Health, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

  • Kristen Tenney

    4   University of Cincinnati Health, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
    5   University of Cincinnati Blush Ash College, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

  • Abby Georgilis

    4   University of Cincinnati Health, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

  • Lisa Melink

    4   University of Cincinnati Health, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

  • Danny T.Y. Wu

    1   Department of Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
    3   Medical Sciences Baccalaureate Program, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

  • Jennifer Rose Molano

    6   Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Funding None.
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Abstract

Background Clinician burnout is increasingly prevalent in the health care workplace. Hospital leadership needs an informatics tool to measure clinicians' well-being levels and provide empirical evidence to improve their work environment.

Objectives This study aimed to (1) design and implement a web-based application to collect and visualize clinicians' well-being levels and (2) conduct formative usability evaluation.

Methods Clinician and staff well-being champions guided the development of the Well-being Check application. User-centered design and Agile principles were used for incremental development of the app. The app included a customizable survey and an interactive visualization. The survey consisted of six standard, two optional, and three additional questions. The interactive visualization included various charts and word clouds with filters for drill-down analysis. The evaluation was done primarily with the rehabilitation (REHAB) team using data-centered approaches through historical survey data and qualitative coding of the free-text explanations and user-centered approaches through the System Usability Scale (SUS).

Results The evaluation showed that the app appropriately accommodated historical survey data from the REHAB team, enabling the comparison between self-assessed and perceived team well-being levels, and summarized key drivers based on the qualitative coding of the free-text explanations. Responses from the 23 REHAB team members showed an above-average score (SUS: 80.22), indicating high usability of the app.

Conclusion The Well-being Check app was developed in a user-centered manner and evaluated to demonstrate its effectiveness and usability. Future work includes iterative refinement of the app and designing a pre-poststudy using the app to measure the change in clinicians' well-being levels for quality improvement intervention.

Keywords

care teams - interfaces and usability - data visualization - other clinical informatics applications

Author Contributions

The corresponding author (D.T.Y.W.) designed and mentored the first two authors (D.S. and C.T.X.) to conduct the study and analyze the data. The first author (D.S.) drafted the manuscript with the support of the second author (C.T.X.). The third author (S.P.) collected and analyzed the usability scores. The senior author (J.R.M.) provided guidance and resources to support the development activities. All coauthors helped improve the clarity and value of the manuscript by reviewing and revising the manuscript.


Protection of Human and Animal Subjects

No animal subjects were included. The study was considered Not Human Subject Research due to its non-generalizable nature and the use of survey to collect de-identified user feedback.




Publication History

Received: 09 May 2023

Accepted: 02 January 2024

Article published online:
21 February 2024

© 2024. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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