Design and usability testing of anonymous touch-screen electronic queuing system: Towards improving patient satisfaction

Patients´ experiences of hospital waiting rooms are often negative. Academic literature reports patients´ describing fear, anger, uncertainty, and rage (sometimes directed at staff). Electronic white boards are being used to give staff overviews of ward activity, but information systems aimed at patients are often concerned with using time spend in the waiting room for patient education, rather than clarifying the queuing process. Patient confidentiality is a key concern within health care. This paper describes the design and initial usability testing for an anonymous electronic waiting room system. The results regarding participants´ perception of the software´s usability, learnability, and usefulness were encouraging, and the interaction success rate was high.