The journey to usability: A vendor's perspective

Abstract

To successfully utilize the full functionality of a mission-critical application such as an electronic health record (EHR), it is imperative to be flexible, intuitive, feature-rich and scalable. On a foundational level, having access to an application running with high-speed connections and fast processing speeds with an easily accessible network on a device suitable to the clinicians' choice and for the environment desired is the expectation of most users. But when it comes to usability, can the subjective become a science? Vendors, certification bodies, insurance payers, federal policy organizations and the Institute of Medicine think so, and have been working to reconcile the two-way street of adherence to training and implementation with design and workflow best practices. The additional challenge for the EHR software vendors has been the interoperability of all the components within a clinical setting to achieve optimal efficiency and results. Continued challenges grow as care coordination, quality reporting and more detailed coding lead to user options in the areas of data recognition and/or sophisticated voice recognition that capture discrete codified information. For those of us in the medical Information Technology (IT) space, ensuring that the parallel tracts of hardware, communications, networks, browsers and software applications lead to an effective EHR requires constant balance. Users must reconcile the reality of "clicks" with the need for availability of data without becoming overwhelmed. Together, the challenge of advancing mutually beneficial solutions in a highly regulated and standards-based environment has truly been monumental. This review looks at the past leading up to our current status and what is on the near and far horizon of gains in EHR usability.