Usability of the Swedish Patient Portal

In July, Swedish partners from the NORDeHEALTH project published findings from a survey done 2016 which included questions on the usability of the national patient portal.

The data was collected through an online survey which was accessible to everyone who logged into the Swedish patient accessible electronic health record (PAEHR) Journalen. The survey was extensive, and part of it was the 10 System Usability Scale (SUS) items. In total, 2587 unique users complete the survey.

The total mean score for all respondents to the SUS items was 79.81 (SD 14.25), which corresponds to a system with good usability. According to Bangor and colleagues’ thorough evaluation of the SUS, a system needs to score above 70 to be considered at least passable. Better systems will score in the high 70s to high 80s, and scores over 90 indicate a truly superior system.