Evaluating Usability Of Security Mechanisms Of E-health Applications Cases From Ethiopia

E-Health systems play an important role in information processing in healthcare for the benefit ofrnthe patient as well as health professionals in hospital. Various pieces of literature support that manyrnof e-health applications were developed by using one or more standards in SDLC from start tornfinish to fulfill the functional requirement and more with a proper set of security mechanisms inrnplace, from the development point of view. However, majority of these security mechanisms werernnot considered from the users’ point of view. As a result, security of health information isrnbecoming an important and growing concern for all those delivering healthcare by protectingrnsensitive patient records from unauthorized people using security mechanisms.rnThis research is aimed at answering the following two research questions: How usable are thernsecurity mechanisms of e-Health applications in Ethiopia? And how do we improve the usabilityrnaspect of the security mechanisms of e-Health applications? The objective is to evaluate usabilityrnof security mechanisms of e-Health applications functional at health facilities operational underrnAddis Ababa Health Bureau and identify strengths and weaknesses of the usability of the securityrnfeatures of the e-Health applications.rnThis study uses a qualitative research methodology that uses heuristic evaluation of using three e-rnHealth applications by three experts with thematic analysis to identify their focus idea from therncollected data. Three e-health systems are widely used by health care facilities in Ethiopia (DHIS2,rnSmartCare, and OpenEMR). Data collection instrument having thirteen criteria (Visibility,rnrevocability, clarity, convey features/expressiveness, learnability, aesthetics and minimalistrndesign, errors, satisfaction, user suitability, user language, user assistance, security and privacy)rnwas adopted from a framework developed by Yeratziotis (2011) dissertation and updated in 2012.rnThe finding reviled that out of the thirteen criteria, learnability, aesthetics and minimalist design,rnand user language were in compliance, in contrary revocability and user suitability were not inrncompliance with security features according to all the experts review of all e-Health applications.rnFinally, recommendations were given for practice and suggestions forwarded for future research.

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