HIMSS (http://www.himssconference.org/education/education-sessions) and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in Health Care Conference (https://www.hfes.org//Web/HFESMeetings/2015hcs-ccit.html) are done for 2015.
Great talks. Networking. Inspiration.
While we seem to be having the same discussions as we did in 2014 and in 2013 and in 2012 and there is much work to be done to improve the usability of healthcare IT…
We are also talking about getting the focus on the patient.
We are also talking healthcare IT being more than an EMR.
And we are also talking about interoperability.
Are we making progress on the usability of healthcare IT?
At one of the meetings, the question was asked; has there been any benefit from the Safety-Enhanced Design Meaningful Use 2 program. The response; yes.
The program has shined a light on the manner in which teams apply User Centered Design process:
1) Terry Fairbanks and Raj Ratwani. Human Factors Perspective on Advancing EHR Usability & Safety. Health IT Implementation, Usability and Safety Workgroup October 10, 2014. http://www.healthit.gov/facas/calendar/2014/10/10/policy-hit-implementation-usability-safety-workgroup.
The process has shined a light on the manner in which teams carryout and report Summative Usability Methods:
2) Christine Buchanan, Anthony Threatt, Matthew B. Weinger, & Anne Miller, Vanderbilt U. Medical Center, High Variability in Summative Usability Test Methods & Reporting Among Clinical Informatics Vendors Complying With Federal Certification Requirements. Presented at International Annual meeting of Human Factors and Ergonomics October 2014 3. http://www.hfes.org/web/HFESMeetings/2014HFESAnnualMeetingProgram.pdf.
The process has allowed at least one organization to report out the frequency of identifying critical usage errors that might harm patients using only a summative test vs using a full User Centered Design process + a traditional Solution Development Lifecycle:
3) Gary Gartner. Improving the Safety of HIT with a User-Centered design Process. Poster presented at the International Symposium of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare June 2014 3. http://www.hfes.org/web/HFESMeetings/HCSPresentations/HCS2014Gartner.pdf
The process has allowed at least one organization to report the ranking of prioritized features (e.g., eMAR, Reconciliation, etc.) based on findings reported on the ONC CHPL website for 9 EHR products. The rankings take into account task failures x error analysis score (frequency x severity):
4) Caleb Furlough, Janey Barnes, Jennifer Mauney, Alisha Belk, Laura Blanchard, Teri Brooks, Megan Brown, Naomi Glasscock, Merryl Gross, Ellie Hunt, and Hasmik Mehranian. Observed Usage Errors during Meaningful Use Stage 2 Safety-Enhanced Design Summative Testing. Proceedings of the International Symposium of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare June 2014 3: 81-86, doi:10.1177/2327857914031012. http://hcs.sagepub.com/content/3/1/81.full.pdf+html