Improving The Usability Of Epic EHR Systems 

Epic is a cloud-based EHR program that supports several specializations. A wide spectrum of practices employs Epic from small hospitals and individual practitioners to multi-speciality hospital groups and hospice care providers. Depending on the practice's speciality, practices can add modules to Epic's basic set of "core" EHR functionality. Epic places a lot of emphasis on promoting remote care and patient interaction. Numerous telehealth alternatives, such as those that allow video visits and post-surgical follow-ups as well as patient monitoring tools, are included in the Epic EHR features. The full patient portal is available as a native app for both Android and iOS.The usefulness of electronic health record systems is frequently criticized (EHRs). There is mounting evidence that the usability of EHRs is lacking. Dr Michael S. Barr of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), who spoke at the 2013 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference & Exhibition, issued the following advisories: 

"Clinicians' satisfaction and usability ratings for certified electronic health records (EHRs) have decreased across a range of indicators since 2010."

In a recent article, 50 studies with the keywords electronic medical records and electronic health records paired with interface design, usability, safety, and mistakes published after 2000 were analyzed. The studies were published in The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Their analysis of usability tests for EMR and EHRs identified main categories of issues:

Naturalness 

The display's data should be arranged in a logical sequence. Naturalness also refers to how well an application fits into the system's "natural" workflow and how simple and familiar it is to operate.

Consistency 

Essentially, this principle states that understanding one component of an interface should be necessary for using other components. One specific user action should always be able to achieve a specific system action.

Preventing mistakes 

The design of interactive system interfaces should focus on preventing problems before they occur.

Reduced Cognitive Demand 

The capacity of human short-term memory is constrained. Users' cognitive strain should be minimized via the design of interfaces. Users shouldn't have to commit system details or database content to memory.

Effective Communication 

Efficiency in human-computer interaction should be prioritized by reducing the number of steps required to accomplish a job or offering users shortcuts.

Effective Language Use 

All dialogues should be presented using simple, user-friendly terms and phrases, according to Molich and Nielson (1990). Several phrases and acronyms used in the healthcare industry may be common knowledge to certain users but may not signify anything to others.

Presentation of Information Effectively 

From a user's viewpoint, the complexity and usability of EMR interfaces are influenced by the amount, kind, and structure of information.

Recommended Reading : How S10 Robot medical Scribe can improve EPIC EHR Usability?

 

Customizability/Flexibility 

Customization is an EMR interface's capacity to be changed per each healthcare provider's requirements. One of the 14 usability criteria stated is flexibility, or the interactive system's ability to be adjusted.

The major goal of the EHR should continue to be the facilitation of seamless patient care to enhance outcomes while contributing to data gathering that enables critical analysis as value-based care and accountable care models expand. Only if necessary for quality evaluation or reporting or beneficial in the delivery of care should structured data be collected. All additional papers required by other entities, including prior authorizations, must no longer be exclusive in the data they contain and the way they are formatted. 

Access by patients to their progress notes and other medical information may be a technique to raise patient satisfaction and care standards. 

Suggestion To Improve The Usability Of EHR

• To increase the accuracy of information captured and the usefulness of information given to other users, identify best practices for systems and physicians. 
• Investigate the authoring procedure and support the creation of automated solutions that raise documentation quality while preventing bad behaviour. 
• Recognize the importance of their responsibility to document their observations completely, succinctly, accurately, and in a way that supports their reuse. Recognize the best ways to improve medical education to prepare new and practising clinicians for the growing uses of health information technology in the care of patients and populations. 
• Identify the most efficient ways to spread the best practices and professional standards for clinical documentation.

Emphasis is frequently placed on the EHR vendor and the adoption of new EHR technologies. However, EHR optimization is the key to maintaining the technology and improving EHR usability. Electronic health records (EHRs) usability is still a significant issue. A subpar interface's structure, the amount or lack of pertinent information it contains, and the cumbersome processes and alarms are all examples of poor interface usability. One of the ways to improve the usability of EHRs can be to use AI medical scribes. S10 Robot Medical Scribe can relieve physicians of the EHR documentation burden which has been linked to patient safety incidents and physician exhaustion. S10 Robot medical scribe facilitates higher EHR adoption rates, fewer clinical mistakes, less physician fatigue, financial gains, and more patient safety. 

 

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