It is widely believed that if Health Information Technologies (HITs) like telehealth are well designed and effectively used, they have the potential to improve clinical efficiency and patient-centered aspects of care. Effective design and implementation of HIT is foundational to providing health providers and patients effective, efficient, safe, and timely access to healthcare. Several studies suggest that human-centered issues, especially usability problems associated with telehealth contribute to the slow adoption of this technology. The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have both stressed the need to measure and improve HIT usability. Usability, as defined by NIST, refers to “effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which intended users can achieve their tasks in the intended context of product use.” The broad definition of usability includes ease of use and safety aspects of the interface, the degree of cognitive support embedded in the functionality and the impact of implementation on work processes. We invite investigators to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that address HIT and in particular telehealth “usability”. Studies can include a multitude of methodologies such as ethnographic studies, time-series studies, and human-computer interaction studies. We are interested in studies from both real world clinical settings and laboratory evaluations. Papers from diverse perspective such as systems engineering, cognitive science, human-computer interaction, health informatics, and clinical medicine are encouraged. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Association of HIT use and physician-patient communication in clinical settings
• Association of HIT on clinical workflow in diverse settings (inpatient, outpatient, and patient home)
• Association of HIT usability with patient, provider, and health system level outcomes
• Advances in research methodologies for evaluating HIT usability

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