Exploring Association between Perceived Usability of Dosimetry Quality Assurance Checklist and Perceived Cognitive Workload of Dosimetrists in Clinical Settings

Abstract

Usability and cognitive workload (CWL) are multidimensional constructs that describe user experience, predict performance, and inform system design. The relationship between the subjective measures of these constructs has not been adequately explored, especially in healthcare delivery settings where suboptimal usability of electronic health records and CWL of healthcare professionals are among the major contributing factors to medical errors. This study quantifies the perceived usability of a dosimetry quality assurance (QA) checklist and the perceived CWL of dosimetrists in radiation oncology clinical settings of an academic medical center and investigates the association between perceived usability and perceived CWL. Findings suggest that our institutional dosimetry QA checklist has suboptimal usability, but the associated CWL is acceptable. Further, the correlation analysis reveals that perceived usability and perceived CWL are non-overlapping constructs and may be jointly employed to reduce the risk of healthcare professionals committing medical errors.