human factors engineering (HFE)
See the following -
Google Glass Moves With Speed Thanks to Open Source
I recently got a Google Glass device through the Explorer Program. Once I got it in my hands, I linked it to my associated Gmail account and G+ account. Then, I got started. One of the first things I noticed was that I was presented with many open source software tools to work with. This was exciting. And, I soon learned that it was thanks to these open source resources that Glass development can be done quickly and successfully. Read More »
- Login to post comments
Halamka: Google Glass - the Details
I’m now able to publicly write about the work that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has been doing with stealthy start up, Wearable Intelligence. We’ve been working over the past 4 months on pilots that I believe will improve the safety, quality and efficiency of patient care through the integration of wearable technology such as Google Glass in the hospital environment. Read More »
- Login to post comments
On the Need to Improve User-Centered Design (i.e. Design Thinking) for Healthcare IT Usability
The lack of usability of electronic health records (EHRs) and healthcare IT applications, in general, has been in the news a lot again. This time it is a research report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on March 27. The study analyzed voluntary error reports associated with EHR systems and found that problems with EHR usability may have directly resulted in patient harm. Unfortunately, this situation is all too common in the healthcare industry. Numerous health care systems are designed and created ad hoc, or with a very engineering-centric approach. End users are dissatisfied and often systems or workflows are abandoned and/or dangerous work-a-rounds created. A lot of people are saying Healthcare IT needs a disruption. What HealthIT needs is to begin to learn about and understand the needs, goals, and methods of the actual end-users, like doctors, nurses, medical assistants, etc.
- Login to post comments
Open Source to Make Caring for Your Health Feel Wonderful
Juhan Sonin wants to influence the world from protein, to policy, to pixel. And, he believes the only way to do that is with open source principles guiding the way. Juhan is the Creative Director at Involution Studios, a design firm educating and empowering people to feel wonderful by creating, developing, and licensing their work for the public. "We believe that any taxpayer funded effort should be made available, in its entirety, to be reused, modified, and updated by any citizen or business, hence the open source license. It should be a U.S. standard practice for contracted work." One of their works is hGraph, a visual representation of your health status, designed to help you alter individual factors to improve it... Read More »
- Login to post comments
Slow Death by EMR or: How I Learned to Stop Clicking and Love Google Glass
Here's a dirty little secret that I'll share with you: the clinical usability of current-generation electronic medical record (EMR) systems is nothing short of atrocious. If the Geneva Convention's proscription against torture extended to healthcare information technology (HIT), most vendors would be out of business and behind bars. But you probably already knew that: a November 2013 article in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine (AJEM) found that community emergency physicians spend 44 percent of their time interacting with EMRs and click up to 4,000 times in a 10-hour shift.
- Login to post comments
Three Areas Where Health Information Technology Needs to Get its House in Order
Health reform is taking off, thanks to pressure from insurers, the promise with which innovative technologies tease us for low-cost treatments, and regulatory mandates dating back to the HITECH act of 2009. Recent hopeful signs for wider adoption of health technologies include FDA forebearance from regulating consumer health apps, calls for more support for telemedicine, and new health announcements from tech giants such as Apple and Google. While technologists push forward in all these areas, we need to keep in mind that several big unsolved problems remain. Let's not get lost in the details--these major issues have to be tackled head on. Read More »