On Tuesday, July 12, 2011, Lewis Morris, Chief Counsel to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services testified before the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security about the role new technologies can play in cutting waste and fraud in the Federal health care programs.
To read more, please follow the link:
http://oig.hhs.gov/newsroom/news-releases/2011/lew-testimony.asp
Conducting short-term research that addresses the urgent usability, workflow, and cognitive support issues of Healthcare Information Technology.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Noted Medication Safety Expert Comments on the Benefits and Potential Dangers of E-Prescribing
Michael Cohen, President of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices posted a valuable commentary on e-Prescribing this week.
He states “Patients should always receive verbal instructions from the prescriber, be given an opportunity to ask questions, and, with e-prescribing, also be provided with some sort of corresponding “voucher” that lists the prescribed medication, dose, and directions for use. Then the patient can use the voucher to check the prescription by matching it to what he or she actually receives in the pharmacy to assure it is the correct medication.”
See the full article here.
Monday, June 27, 2011
10x10 with University of Texas | AMIA
Healthcare Interface Design Distance Learning Course
First 10x10 offering from The University of Texas to begin July 11, 2011!The School of Biomedical Informatics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston will be offering its Healthcare Interface Design Distance Learning Course as part of the AMIA 10x10 program.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston’s contribution to the AMIA 10x10 is an online course that focuses on EMR, human-computer interaction, human factors and Health IT usability.
This on-line interactive course will allow the student to master the fundamental principles and methods in health interface design, learn how to evaluate the usability of existing systems, and also learn how to design new systems with built-in good usability by applying related theories, principles, methodologies and techniques.
The AMIA-UTH 10x10 course is intended for Health IT professionals, CIO’s, CMIO’s, system developers and programmers, researchers and informaticians, physicians, nurses, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other healthcare professionals. The registrant should have an educational background in health sciences, computer science, informatics, or other related areas.
10x10 with University of Texas AMIA
Thursday, June 23, 2011
SHARPC Team Receives Honorable Mention in Challenge.gov Competition
Congratulations to the SHARPC team which partnered members from the University of Washington, General UI, and the Department of General Affairs. Among 15 final submissions, the team recently received an honorable mention in The SMART Platform Apps Challenge recently sponsored and funded by The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology through the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program. As an honorable mention recipient, the team’s app will be showcased in the SMART Apps Gallery on the Challenge.gov website.
This multidisciplinary team developed and submitted Priority ContactTM a smartphone application that is designed to improve direct communication between providers and patients to discuss, interpret, and manage treatment plans after new test results are received.
Please see the award announcement here or you may go directly to the link for the Priority ContactTM submission.
Monday, May 16, 2011
NIST Usability of Electronic Health Records Workshop
Posted by SHARRPC on behalf of our friends at NIST:
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is hosting “A Community-Building Workshop: Measuring, Evaluating and Improving the Usability of Electronic Health Records” on June 7 on NIST’s campus in Gaithersburg, MD.
The purpose of the event is to establish an open forum for industry, academia, government, healthcare providers and other stakeholders to discuss and provide input toward development of EHR usability evaluation methods and building a community around improving EHR usability.
While there is no cost to participate, registration is required. For more details and to register, please visit: http://www.nist.gov/healthcare/usability/usability-technical-workshop.cfm
All Online and All for Free*
June 8-9, 2011
5010/ICD-10 and Meaningful Use Education
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Medical Scribes – A new Rx for the EMR?
Recently an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer reported physicians are hiring medical scribes to follow them and input data (chart) in the new electronic medical record. “The new record-keeping systems, which are touted as a way to improve efficiency and quality, slow down emergency medicine physicians so much that the doctors are hiring young people like Fera to input data for them.” http://bit.ly/PhillyInqMedScribeArticle While the article suggested that the new scribes created a great job for aspiring medical students- for those of us who work with usability and safety in electronic records this comes as a sad commentary.
While we certainly don’t want to put people out of work- hiring a scribe to be a physician proxy in entering vital patient information forces a bigger question- “Why can’t the physician chart in the new EMR? “. The answer may lie within the ability of EMR vendors to construct software that is “usable”. While the word usable seems simple and a “no-brainer” EHR usability is not a simple concept. Usability refers to how useful, usable, and satisfying a system is for the users to accomplish goals in the work domain by performing certain sequences of tasks. Clearly if the physician can’t use the EHR in their work flow in the Emergency Room without also needing a medical scribe – it is missing the mark on usability. A system is usable if it is easy to learn, easy to use, and error-resistant. As healthcare costs increase – and EMRs are a large purchase for a hospital- shouldn’t EMRs be usable without having to hire additional clinical support personnel? A worthy goal for us all.
What are your thoughts? Let me hear from you.
Jiajie Zhang, PhD
SHARPC Principal Investigator and NCCD Co-Director
While we certainly don’t want to put people out of work- hiring a scribe to be a physician proxy in entering vital patient information forces a bigger question- “Why can’t the physician chart in the new EMR? “. The answer may lie within the ability of EMR vendors to construct software that is “usable”. While the word usable seems simple and a “no-brainer” EHR usability is not a simple concept. Usability refers to how useful, usable, and satisfying a system is for the users to accomplish goals in the work domain by performing certain sequences of tasks. Clearly if the physician can’t use the EHR in their work flow in the Emergency Room without also needing a medical scribe – it is missing the mark on usability. A system is usable if it is easy to learn, easy to use, and error-resistant. As healthcare costs increase – and EMRs are a large purchase for a hospital- shouldn’t EMRs be usable without having to hire additional clinical support personnel? A worthy goal for us all.
What are your thoughts? Let me hear from you.
Jiajie Zhang, PhD
SHARPC Principal Investigator and NCCD Co-Director
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
SHARPC in the NEWS
Jiajie Zhang, PhD, PI and Co-Director of the National Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision Making in Healthcare, has recently been featured in Healthcare IT News about electronic health record (EHR) usability. Click on the following links to read more about EHR usability.
Usability is key for EHR adoption
Seven questions with Jiajie Zhang
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)