usability

Healthcare providers are busy people.  Between high patient loads and the demands of EHR documentation, the reporting requirements, the internal meetings, and the minutes wasted waiting for test results or other communications from the care team, there is often precious little time to get a cup of coffee, let alone sit down to rethink their workflow procedures...

Read More »

Computers, more specifically, electronic health records (EHRs), will someday revolutionize the practice of medicine. In fact, successful computerization of medical care is the most critical step necessary to transform the American health-care system from its current sorry state to the 21st century system of our dreams. It is ironic, then, that today EHRs represent one of the worst problems plaguing medical professionals. At this point, many physicians would say that EHRs have created more problems than they have fixed. The most important question is how do we get from where we are to where we need to be?...

Read More »

I’m going to be honest: when I first joined FrontlineSMS I had no idea how much goes into the design of software. Every screen, every button and every function has principled thought behind it.  In 2011, we worked alongside Gabriel White, a User Experience Designer from Small Surfaces, to help translate FrontlineSMS users’ needs into the new design of Version 2. Read More »

Electronic health records are supposed to revolutionize healthcare. Why now the physician backlash? As a practicing emergency physician I can attest that current EHR systems are so poorly designed that most emergency physicians I know loathe using them. Read More »

Physicians are now free from reporting on two major Meaningful Use requirements, but some doctors may not be aware of this long-sought change that became effective Jan 1. While it is hard to say how many physicians are in the dark about the change, there are anecdotal reports that some doctors don’t know that the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) final rule agreed with AMA’s call to drop computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and clinical decision support (CDS) from Medicare’s payment program. What’s safe to say for certain is that the move comes as relief to physicians, based on surveys measuring their attitudes on electronic health records (EHR) usability in patient care...

Read More »