Benchmark – User Testing Script
Benchmark: User Testing Script
Workflow user testing is essential to ensure the workflow performs exactly as intended, without errors. According to Zayas-Cabán et al. (2021), a proposed healthcare workflow should be tested to ensure accuracy and reliability, validate integration with current systems, ensure compliance and data security, and identify redundancies by pinpointing unnecessary steps and repetitive tasks. Additionally, testing reveals whether the workflow is efficient and easy for staff to follow, hence prompting user experience improvement. Therefore, user testing is essential. This script presents the individuals who will be part of the user testing, the elements that will be tested, the recommended steps used to perform acceptance, testing, integration testing of the new systems, and testing of system enhancements, the rules involved, expected outcome, and the recommended action plan if the testing does not work.
Since the proposed future state oncology navigation workflow aims to address issues from the oncology north and south forms, streamlining patient assessment, automating referrals, and coordinating cancer care, different participants will be involved in user testing. These participants include the oncology nurse navigators, social workers, clinical nurse coordinators, and referral specialists. The oncology nurse navigators are the primary users and facilitators of the workflow, and thus will be at the forefront of the testing. In addition, social workers, clinical nurse coordinators, and referral specialists are vital in the user testing, considering the workflow routes patients to these team members based on barrier assessments and acuity scores. Other participants will include nurse informaticists, who will be involved in system-level testing and ensuring appropriate data capturing.
User testing will entail different elements. The first and most essential element is integration with current systems. Hettinger et al. (2025) note that user testing should include system integration to ensure interoperability across existing systems, including alert systems and electronic health records (EHRs). Similarly, this workflow will be tested to ensure interoperability with existing systems, including referral databases. Secondly, the workflow will be tested for efficiency to confirm that it reduces documentation and follow-up steps compared to the oncology north and south workflows. The other element is user experience and training needs, which will be assessed to identify areas of improvement or complexity. More so, the proposed workflow’s functionality will be examined to determine whether each step is triggered as initially designed.
Furthermore, testing the workflow will require acceptance, integration, and enhancement testing. In acceptance testing, the recommended steps entail validation of workflow functionality by the clinical team, followed by simulation of full patient scenarios to see how the users interact with the systems, and finally, the verification of whether the workflow supports timely referrals and minimizes redundant steps. The recommended steps for integration testing include ensuring the workflow operates seamlessly with the other systems, verifying that data flows between systems without issues, and ensuring alerts and tasks generated from the workflow appear correctly in the dashboards of downstream users. The recommended steps for enhancement training include checking out updates, incorporating them without disrupting processes, and making necessary changes while ensuring compatibility with existing patient data.
According to Ozkaynak et al. (2025), workflow user testing processes should have some rules to ensure the process maintains safety, compliance, and data accuracy, and goes on smoothly without interrupting other processes in an institution. Several rules will be maintained in this testing. For instance, the testers will use non-identifiable patient data that is no longer being used in the institutions to protect patient privacy and confidentiality. The other rule is that only user representatives will access different workflow changes during testing, ensuring that role-based security is enforced. In addition, the acuity scoring and decision tools must reliably trigger the intended tasks and referral actions. More so, all workflow activities must be captured for accountability and quality improvement tracking purposes.
The appropriateness of workflow user experience testing is determined by its ability to meet the expected outcomes (Olakotan & Mohd Yusof, 2021). In this case, the primary expected outcome of the user experience testing is that the new workflow reduces the steps compared to the disjointed oncology north and south processes by merging redundant assessments into one streamlined flow. The proposed workflow will therefore promote consistent documentation, real-time scoring, and automatic routing of referrals based on identified patient needs. Testing will verify that clinical staff experience greater efficiency, fewer errors, and clearer and coordinated care while using the new workflow.
However, testing does not always go as planned. Ozkaynak et al. (2025) note that planning for eventualities is essential if user testing does not work. The recommended action plan in this case entails several steps. To begin with, the team will identify the root cause of the testing’s failure, whether a technical hitch, design flow, or user misunderstanding, followed by an analysis and proposed actions to address the issue. The second step will entail making corrections/design adjustments. A study by Zayas-Cabán et al. (2021) found that regression testing should be conducted to ensure that the adjusted changes resolve the issue without affecting other parts of the workflow. If the identified issue is unresolved, escalation to the organizational leaders will be necessary. Continuous feedback from the users will be used to identify long-term issues.
User testing of the implementation of the future state oncology navigation workflow is vital in ensuring a safe, efficient, and user-centered workflow. The workflow aims to resolve fragmentation in previous intake practices by unifying them into a digital, structured, and interoperable system. Through comprehensive testing, it will be validated that the workflow aligns with clinical goals and technological capabilities. The above testing strategy and response plan will enable the healthcare team to confidently launch the workflow, thus enhancing care delivery, promoting interdisciplinary coordination, and improving patient outcomes for oncology patients.
References
Hettinger, A. Z., Roth, E. M., Fairbanks, R. J., & Bisantz, A. M. (2025). Clinical workflow and human factors. In Reengineering Clinical Workflow in the Digital and AI Era: Toward Safer and More Efficient Care (pp. 269-297). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-82971-0_14
Olakotan, O. O., & Mohd Yusof, M. (2021). The appropriateness of clinical decision support systems alerts in supporting clinical workflows: A systematic review. Health Informatics Journal, 27(2), 14604582211007536. https://doi.org/10.1177/14604582211007536
Ozkaynak, M., Shan, Z., & Wu, D. T. (2025). Recent developments in workflow research in healthcare. Reengineering Clinical Workflow in the Digital and AI Era: Toward Safer and More Efficient Care, 97-113. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-82971-0_6
Zayas-Cabán, T., Haque, S. N., & Kemper, N. (2021). Identifying opportunities for workflow automation in health care: Lessons learned from other industries. Applied Clinical Informatics, 12(3), 686–697. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0041-1731744
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The purpose of this assignment is to apply user testing to the created workflow for the identified case study need.
Read the “Integrated Case Study” resource, located in Class Resources, prior to beginning the assignment. In addition, refer to the instructor feedback you received on the Topic 5 assignment.
Write a 750-1,000-word test script that answers the following questions:
- Who would be part of the user testing?
- What are the elements to test?
- What are the recommended steps used to perform acceptance testing, integration testing of new systems, and testing of system enhancements?
- Describe any rules involved.
- What is the action/outcome expected?
- What would the recommended action plan be if testing does not work?
Cite at least three scholarly resources in your response.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.