AHRQ

EHR Usability: An Illustrated Guide

I did a brief presentation at NIST on July13, along with about 2 dozen other usability geeks like me. The government recognizes the importance of having usable software if physicians and hospitals are to be expected to adopt electronic medical records. The ARRA incentives alone won't be sufficient if the software usability is lacking, causing physicians and other healthcare workers to lose productivity. They might break even, but many physicians worry that they won't, even with the financial incentives. Here are the pictures. You have to imagine my voice.

View more presentations from Jeff Belden MD.

NIST will be posting the slides and audio later. You might try here.

AHRQ publishes paper - "EHR Usability: Vendor Practices & Perspectives"

AHRQ just published a new white paper last week.
You can read it here as a PDF.

From World Usability Day 2006 poster
The objectives of the project that led to this paper were:

...to understand processes and practices by these vendors with regard to:
  • The existence and use of standards and “best practices” in designing, developing, and deploying products.
  • Testing and evaluating usability throughout the product life cycle.
  • Supporting post-deployment monitoring to ensure patient safety and effective use.
It's good to see continued attention to usability in the EHR/EMR world.