Evaluation of Health Care Icons

Abstract

The current study evaluated a large number of health care icons that are currently in use in numerous Electronic Health Record Systems. For this purpose health care providers were asked to select icon – subject associations that best represent the icon in a multiple choice task. While in some cases a high level of agreement was identified between icons and subject, in the majority the agreement among provider selections was poor. In addition, there was little agreement between provider groups (physicians vs. nurses). Finally, the study provides evidence that numerous icons that are displayed to providers on a daily basis were not identified correctly. Overall, the results of this study indicate that there is a need for a usability-driven icon design process for health care icons.