Home » Rick Weinhaus » Currently Reading:

EHR Design Talk with Dr. Rick 4/1/13

April 1, 2013 Rick Weinhaus 3 Comments

The Text-Based Workaround

We have been considering two fundamentally different designs for presenting a patient’s past and present medical issues over time — the Snapshot-in-Time design and the Overview-by-Category design.

I have tried to make the case that the Snapshot-in-Time design, although rarely used as a high-level EHR paradigm, does a much better job than the widely adopted Overview-by-Category design for two reasons:

1) Clinicians think of the patient’s health as a story – a narrative of how things got to be the way they are. Each patient’s story is rich, complex, and unique. By presenting the patient’s story as a series of snapshots in time, this rich narrative gradually unfolds, a little like turning the pages of a picture book.

2) The Snapshot-in-Time design, when combined with assigning each category of data to a fixed location on the screen or page (see Why T-Sheets Work), allows us to take it in and process information using the fast visual processing part of our brain. In contrast, the Overview-by-Category design compels us to use slower cognitive processing.

In my last post, I wrote that perhaps due to the limitations inherent in the Overview-by-Category design, most EHRs that employ it also provide a workaround solution. This workaround is nothing other than a text-based chart note generated by the EHR.

For each patient encounter, the EHR can generate a single, relatively comprehensive text-based document assembled from the previously-entered structured data.

These text-based documents are typically in Microsoft Word or PDF format. They can be viewed on the monitor from within the EHR application, printed, or sent electronically as PDFs.

Although these text-based EHR chart notes are snapshots in time (unlike the Overview-by-Category EHR screens), they usually have significant problems, including:

  • low data density
  • non-interactive design
  • poor spatial organization and layout

In this and the next several posts, I will address these issues by presenting mockups of text-based chart notes, based on the design of several well-known EHRs.

The mockups use the same patient database that I used for the Snapshot-in-Time and the Overview-by-Category mockups. While these examples are for an ambulatory patient, similar designs are common in hospital-based EHR systems.

In order to see the mockups and read the accompanying text, enlarge them to full screen size by clicking on the ‘full screen’ button clip_image001 in the lower right corner of the SlideShare frame below.

Rick Weinhaus MD practices clinical ophthalmology in the Boston area. He trained at Harvard Medical School, The Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and the Neuroscience Unit of the Schepens Eye Research Institute. He writes on how to design simple, powerful, elegant user interfaces for electronic health records (EHRs) by applying our understanding of human perception and cognition. He welcomes your comments and thoughts on this post and on EHR usability issues. E-mail Dr. Rick.



HIStalk Featured Sponsors

     

Currently there are "3 comments" on this Article:

  1. Hi Dr. Weinhaus – could not get the slide viewer to render your material large enough to actually be able to read it. Would you be so kind to send me a ppt, PDF, or whatever so I could look it over?? Then I can provide comments.

    Many thanks

    Hank Mayers

  2. You don’t need to read what’s in the documents to get his point if you go though the whole thing.

  3. Hank and Robert,

    Thanks so much for your comments.

    By showing some of the documents at reduced scale, I was trying to emphasize the amount of unused real estate on the page or screen.

    Hank, I’d be happy to send you the original documents.

    You could send your email address to me at drrickweinhaus@gmail.com

    Rick







Text Ads


RECENT COMMENTS

  1. It seems that every innovation in the past 50 years has claimed that it would save money and lives. There…

  2. Well, this is predicting the future, and my crystal ball is cloudy and cracked. But my basic thesis about Meditech?…

  3. RE Judy Faulkner's foundation wishes: Different area, but read up on the Barnes Foundation to see how things work out…

  4. Meditech certainly benefited from Cerner and Allscripts stumbles and before that the failures of ECW and Athena’s inpatient expansions. I…

  5. Yes, Meditech will talk your ears off about Expanse. There are multiple factors at play here which undercut both Meditech…

Founding Sponsors


 

Platinum Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RSS Webinars

  • An error has occurred, which probably means the feed is down. Try again later.