Case Studies
Elsevier: Positions itself as the number one provider of Clinical Decision Support with the help of Macadamian.
Challenge
Update and expand a popular Clinical Decision Support system without requiring time-pressed users to “re-learn” the online system.
Solution
Conduct user research and usability tests to develop a new, more intuitive interface that matches the most important nursing needs.
Results
• Through user testing, Elsevier identified new areas of value that have further enhanced its solution.
• Users report that the expanded website is even more intuitive and user-friendly than the original.
• Nurses are accessing clinical information more quickly and efficiently than ever before.
When it was time to update Mosby’s Nursing Consult, an online Clinical Decision Support system for nurses, Elsevier wished to ensure that the new system would be as simple to use (and update) as possible.
By engaging Macadamian’s user research and interaction design services, Elsevier uncovered new areas for innovation and is helping nurses access relevant, actionable patient care information more conveniently than ever before.
As the world’s leading provider of science and health information, Elsevier serves more than 30 million scientists, students, and health and information professionals around the world. One of its most popular offerings is the Mosby’s Nursing Consult website – a Clinical Decision Support tool that leverages content from leading nursing resources. Using the website, nurses can find answers to pressing clinical questions and bring evidence-based best practices to the point of care.
“The website is used primarily by nursing staff in acute care facilities,” explains Louis Pilla, Director, Mosby’s Nursing Consult/ Mosby’s Index. “If a nurse has a question about a new drug that needs to be administered, for example, the nurse can consult the website, enter the drug name into the search box and obtain a complete set of information about it.”
Online since 2006, the website had become an extremely popular resource for nurses. By 2010, Elsevier felt that the site was in need of a substantial design update. “The initial design had served us well, but we were encountering a number of limitations,” Pilla recalls. “Although we’d been updating the site since its launch, it was difficult to add new content and we were running out of real estate. We wanted to add new information and value, but we didn’t want the site to become unwieldy.”
Understanding the User
To ensure its website remained a leading resource in the healthcare industry, Elsevier recognized that any new changes to the site would need to add value and be simple to use.
“Nurses always face a time crunch,” explains Pilla. “They have a high patient load and need answers right away. They don’t have time to sit at a computer with a cup of coffee and casually browse for information – they need the information now. Our mission was to meet that need by providing information that was accurate and timely.” To ensure that it had an accurate picture of nursing needs, Elsevier contacted Macadamian for user research and user interface (UI) design assistance.
“This was going to be the biggest change to the website since its launch, so we engaged Macadamian to help us build a site that was intuitive enough for users to find information quickly, yet familiar to nurses who had been using the website since its original launch,” says Pilla.
Macadamian’s User Centered Design (UCD) experts interviewed key members of the client team to identify the essential business values that made the website a success. These included the ability to help users follow evidence-based practices to meet ever- increasing regulatory standards and patient safety initiatives, and the ability to surface relevant and actionable healthcare information quickly and efficiently.
Then, Macadamian mined existing internal data (marketing information, customer feedback and past user interviews and conducted interviews with users of the existing website). This research allowed the team to develop user personas that represented the most typical website users.
Uncovering Areas for Innovation
“Based on the user research and usability tests, we were able to identify new areas of value related to quality and safety and develop sections of the website to address them,” says Pilla. “For example, Macadamian’s research uncovered that nurses wanted to have access to information about Quality and Safety. To help meet this need, we began a new section on the site to cover these topics. ”
Elsevier also improved the website’s search capabilities by adding “quick find” and “recent search” functionality. “The new functionality saves time in finding the right information,” adds Pilla.
To further help nurses save time, the new website also offers additional “preview” capabilities to help nurses access or print the correct journal article and other content.
Ensuring Usability
Before launching the revamped interface, Macadamian developed a prototype site composed of screenshots and wireframes. This prototype featured:
- Better use of screen real estate to promote the items nurses need to locate immediatley.
- A cleaner, more intuitive UI
- Improved navigation
Macadamian’s UCD experts then tested the prototype site with various users from across the U.S. to address any unforeseen usability problems. The revised interface received an excellent response from the test users who reported that it was even more intuitive and user-friendly than the original website.
Delivering Results
“Thanks to the work performed by Macadamian, nurses will be able to use Mosby’s Nursing Consult more quickly and efficiently than ever before,” Pilla notes. “We’ve been able to organize the interface to match the most important nursing needs, and that has given us confidence that the site will be even more successful in the marketplace.”
Elsevier credits much of the project’s success to the close working relationship his group established with Macadamian.
“The Macadamian team was very professional and kept in good communication with us throughout the project,” notes Pilla. “I felt ‘in the know’ at all times and all deadlines were met, which gave me confidence that the end product would be successful.”
Elsevier plans to continue to engage Macadamian on future updates to the Mosby’s Nursing Consult website and for additional user research and UCD assistance as required.
About Elsevier Clinical Decision Support
Elsevier Clinical Decision Support a division of Elsevier, the global leader in medical and health information, provides world class information and point-of-care technology solutions that optimize decisions and actions to improve the overall quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of care. The business delivers on this promise through actionable clinical content, care planning and documentation, drug reference and decision support, learning and performance management, and data mining and outcomes analytics solutions for provider, pharmacy and payer organizations.
