By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    physical health
    5 Ways Playing Games Can Improve Neural and Physical Health
    September 9, 2022
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    February 16, 2022
    healthcare organization
    5 Actionable Strategies For Healthcare Organizations
    August 15, 2022
    Latest News
    7 Most Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs: Which Should You Use?
    August 20, 2025
    Hospital Pest Control and the Fight Against Superbugs
    August 20, 2025
    Hygiene Beyond The Clinic: Attention To Overlooked Non-Clinical Spaces
    August 13, 2025
    5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
    August 3, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    4 Reasons Chris Cornell’s Death Raises Medical Ethics Questions
    December 19, 2018
    What If You Could Sell Your Vote?
    August 24, 2017
    The Sleepy American
    September 12, 2017
    Latest News
    How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
    August 22, 2025
    How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
    August 22, 2025
    How One Fall Can Lead to a Long Road of Medical Complications
    August 22, 2025
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Report from NIST EHR Usability Forum: 5 Things EHR Vendors Should Do Right Now to Prepare for Meaningful Use Usability Criteria
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > eHealth > Report from NIST EHR Usability Forum: 5 Things EHR Vendors Should Do Right Now to Prepare for Meaningful Use Usability Criteria
eHealth

Report from NIST EHR Usability Forum: 5 Things EHR Vendors Should Do Right Now to Prepare for Meaningful Use Usability Criteria

ShahidShah
ShahidShah
Share
6 Min Read
SHARE

 

 

Last week I was invited to attend the second annual NIST forum for EHR Usability called “A Community-Building Workshop: Measuring, Evaluating and Improving the Usability of Electronic Health Records.” NIST, in collaboration with the ONC, unveiled its initial discussion points for what it might consider as the “Usability Criteria” in the upcoming Meaningful Use Stage 2 regulations. At the event I met with Dr. Melanie Rodney, Distinguished Researcher at Macadamian and a member of the HIMSS Usability task force; I was impressed by the work that she and her firm were doing in EHR usability space. At the NIST forum I was able to spend time with experts in the both the fields of EHRs (like me) as well as in usability and user experience (like Melanie). We learned that the government believes that while usability can be key in increasing product effectiveness, speed, enjoyment, etc., NIST is going to focus on EHR usability for the improvement of patient safety. I asked Melanie and Lorraine Chapman, Director of User Research at Macadmian, to share with us what we in the EHR technical community should do in light of what we learned at the NIST forum last week. Here’s what Melanie and Lorraine said:

While the specifics are still forthcoming, vendors have a window of opportunity today to get ahead of NIST – and ahead of competitors – by proactively addressing meaningful use in advance of the 2013 deadline. Let’s look at what vendors can do, combining the information NIST has given so far with fundamental usability best practices:

Step 1: Set Usability Goals related to Patient Safety

More Read

Image
Expanding Your Social Media Networks
Wearable Computers, Biosensors and Sanity
Leading in Social at Cleveland Clinic
Microsoft Aims to Transform Healthcare Using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Top Tips to Boost Facebook Engagement

These are specific, measurable goals such as “Our EHR must provide a 99% error-free rate of medication entry”. NIST has given the following examples of use error categories, each of which might be driving 1 or more goals.

1. patient ID errors
2. mode errors [e.g., dose related]
3. data accuracy errors
4. visibility errors [e.g., tapered dose 80-20mg – 80 shows vs. 20]
5. consistency errors [ e.g., pounds vs. kilos ]
6. recall errors [e.g., 1 time dose]
7. feedback errors [1 tablet vs. 1/4 tablet]
8. data integrity errors [ next vs. finish to enter injection just administered]

Step 2: Identify Target (and Real) Users

The Stage 2 meaningful use criteria will require EMRs to demonstrate that they have tested their products’ usability with representative users. For hospitals, representative users will include nurses, and other allied health professionals in addition to physicians. For smaller clinics, the primary users may just be physicians, and nurses. Identify and categorize the key users of your product, then create User Personas to describe and the goals and motivations of each user group.

Step 3: Identify Critical Tasks

Isolate and describe the primary tasks that users must perform with your product. NIST has said that it will provide example lists of tasks and scenarios tied to MU criteria, but in general these should be the high frequency and high criticality tasks of your system.

For example:
• Hospital critical task flow: nursing notes and common tasks such as administering medication and taking vitals
• Clinical critical task flow: the sequence of tasks centered around prescription and drug dosage

Step 4: Benchmark & Track

Focusing on the identified critical tasks, an initial usability test plan should be written and executed to benchmark the product’s usability status. NIST has said the testing should be performed with representative users performing the defined representative tasks, the moderator must have UX/Human Factors and clinical domain experience, and the tests must be performed in a simulation of real use environments [e.g., surgery, clinic, nurses desk, etc.]

Testing will give your organization quantitative data to measure and track specific usability metrics, and the ability to formulate very concrete goals.

Step 5: Build An Action Plan for Meeting Usability Goals

Once your measurable goals and related critical tasks are identified, and benchmarks are established through initial testing, it’s time to put a plan together for incorporating user-centered design into your product development process in order to measurably improve usability for patient safety.

The plan should establish the required investments and timelines to meet the goals, as well as what is required to achieve them, including related organization adjustments, such as bringing in qualified HCI personnel.

With this simple plan in place, vendors can already take action to get buy-in with their internal stakeholders and get their teams systematically identifying and improving weak points related to patient safety, in preparation for the final criteria to be announced later in the year.

For more detailed information about establishing software usability as part of your core development process, check out Macadamian’s white paper “Eight Usability Mistakes Your Team is Probably Making (And How to Fix Them)“.

TAGGED:E-healthEHREMRHIT
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

travel nurse in north carolina
Balancing Speed and Scope: Choosing the Nursing Degree That Fits Your Goals
Nursing
September 1, 2025
intimacy
How to Keep Intimacy Comfortable as You Age
Relationship and Lifestyle Senior Care
September 1, 2025
engineer fitting prosthetic arm
How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
Health care
August 20, 2025
a woman explaining the document
How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
Public Health
August 20, 2025

You Might also Like

3 Healthcare Users Who Get Pinterest Right – And What They Can Teach You

January 15, 2014
telehealth
Health ReformMobile HealthTechnology

Why Telehealth of Tomorrow Belongs in Your Marketing Plan Today

March 9, 2016

Creating Infographics Can Help Increase Your Hospital’s Credibility

October 24, 2013
eHealthWellness

The 10 Best Fitness Apps To Make You Love Working Out

December 26, 2018
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?