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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Oncol.
Sec. Head and Neck Cancer
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1231757
This article is part of the Research Topic Quality Assurance and Workflow Optimization for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer View all 7 articles

Safety and usability of oncology information systems -a systematic review

Provisionally accepted
Nikola Cihoric Nikola Cihoric 1*Elena Riggenbach Elena Riggenbach 1Paul Martin Putora Paul Martin Putora 2Fabio Dennstädt Fabio Dennstädt 2
  • 1 Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Bern, Bern, Switzerland
  • 2 Department of Radiation Oncology, Cantonal Hospital St.Gallen, St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Digitalization has become integral to healthcare and specifically cancer treatment.Healthcare providers in oncology widely use electronic data collection and management systems in contemporary clinical practice. However, some reports point to severe problems regarding usability, which negatively impact the clinical workforce, as well as safety issues related to electronic health records, which potentially endanger patients. This systematic review aims to evaluate current scientific literature on the usability and safety aspects of electronic health records in oncology. We conducted a systematic literature review on PubMed and Scopus to identify articles on the usability and safety aspects of electronic health records and clinical information systems utilized in oncological care. Two authors independently evaluated available literature according to predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Finally, we quantitatively analyzed and classified the reported findings. Results: Our literature research strategy retrieved 1032 articles. We included seven articles for further processing. Three projects focused on the assessment of electronic health record functionality, three projects described the process of user-driven design, and one article described remediation procedures introduced to compensate inability of computer systems to adapt to user requirements. Literature on the usability and safety of electronic health records in oncology is sparse. It is essential to raise awareness and start systematic activity to promote research on the usability of electronic health records in oncology.

    Keywords: Electronic Health Record, usability, Safety, oncology, oncology information systems

    Received: 02 Jun 2023; Accepted: 07 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Cihoric, Riggenbach, Putora and Dennstädt. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Nikola Cihoric, Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.