John Glaser of Cerner Discusses Ways to Fix the EHR Usability Problem

A recent article byJohn Glaser, Senior VP of Population Health at Cerner, discussed how to fix EHR usability problem (see:Cerner's John Glaser: How to finally fix the EHR usability problem). As I would expect from John who has been a visionary in healthcare IT for decades, the article is filled with pearls of wisdom. I am thus not able to capture in this blog note all of the wisdom that it contained. Nevertheless, below are some of the highlights from it about which I will not provide without any additional editorial comments. Read the whole article for more insights.Why have usability issues come to dominate so many discussions about EHRs?[C]hange is hard, and EHRs are a big change, especially for clinicians who spent decades perfecting their use of paper charts.......[I]f...[a physician] used to whipping off a prescription in five seconds, spending thirty seconds to enter the same information into the computer must seem like an absurd imposition, even if it does make the information exquisitely readable and simultaneously accessible to all authorized users.......[T]he user interface design of EHRs can be sub-par. ...[I]n our collective efforts to improve care, we have moved more and more work onto the shoulders of the clinician.....In some ways, beating up EHR vendors on usability is a form of shooting the messenger.There is no single strategy or tactic that will address all these factors [on the part of EHR vendors]. We can make significant strides with a m...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Medical Research Quality of Care Source Type: blogs