Report Says EHR Usability Tests Should Focus On Common Safety Threats

The American Medical Association and health system operator MedStar Health have published a report laying out a set of proposals designed to improve EHR safety. The report, which is also backed by The Pew Charitable Trusts, looks at ways that use of EHR usability can fail to prevent or even lead to patient harm. As readers will know, to meet certification criteria EHRs currently need to conform with EHR usability requirements established in 2015. Developers need to document how they meet clinician needs and conduct formal usability testing addressing clinicians’ efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in using the system. Unfortunately, the current generation of certification standards don’t focus specifically on high-prevalence safety hazards, which may mean that the process doesn’t address how usable some important EHR features are, the report says. Plus, even the earlier versions didn’t do much in regards to usability. Over time, of course, both EHR developers and providers have begun to take these issues more seriously, and as the paper points out, are moving beyond the minimum required to meet certification standards. For example, developers have agreed to review safety incidents with patient safety officers and product users, along with sharing such information across healthcare facilities. Also, providers have taken their own steps in this direction, such as protecting EHR safety surveys or establishing safety teams tasked with identifying EHR-relate...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: CCHIT Certification Certified EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Healthcare HealthCare IT Hospital EHR AMA American Medical Association Center for Human Factors in Healthcare EHR Safety EHR Usability EHR U Source Type: blogs