Electronic Health Records Not Enough – Aggregation and Better Interfaces Needed

This article makes a lot of sense and I have said somewhat the same in various posts over the last year, and this is where aggregating data is coming in to play, one place to add, edit and read information. 

One other item that I think has potential is the Common User Interface, so why can’t all the EHR/EMR systems look at least somewhat the same?  Right now a doctor has to learn multiple systems and that can be multiple systems at multiple hospitals, so the information and processes change with each location, I think we need to make the interface the same or very similar and make the records process simpler for the doctors.  Also, the interface need to be dynamic enough to allow for quick screen changes and a minimal amount of clicks.  When I wrote my EMR, that was one of the biggest complaints “too many clicks”. 

Computer technology can cut into personalized patient care with complexity and complicated user interfaces

EHR Adoption Remains Off in the Distance – Getting way to complicated

We are almost at the point of needing standards for “user interfaces” too as the amount of information required and queried is growing so it is more of a task to have to learn multiple systems. 

Silverlight has some answers to dynamics and the screen used and it working it’s way into a genomic interface too.

Genomics and Silverlight from Microsoft working together for Great Visual Enhancement– BioMashUps

Something to give some thought to as things grow and become more complicated, so do the interfaces sometimes and now there’s really not a lot of time to duel it out over who has the best interface, as the real data work and systems are behind the scenes and that is with any system.  BD  

So would this not be nice to have the same screens whether or not the hospital used Microsoft Amalga, McKesson, Cerner, Epic, Eclipsys, etc. just to name a few, to have the same or similar interface at all hospitals, something HHS might want to take a look at when considering common templates and user interfaces maybe, why start at this point and try to reinvent the wheel for goodness sake when so much of the code needed is already done and more is on the way with developers.

Not only do doctors and hospitals need to adopt electronic health records (EHRs), but those digital records need to be easy to share with patients and health care providers, said Dr. Doug Henley, executive vice president with the American Academy of Family Physicians.

And the current crop of EHRs still needs work, as doctors have to wade through multiple pages of data and enter the same information on multiple pages, added Dr. Kevin Hughes, a breast cancer surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital. After the doctor enters the patient's health data once, the EHR should automatically populate itself with that information, he said at a health IT forum in Washington, D.C., hosted by IBM and the eHealth Initiative.

E-health Records Not Enough, Experts Say - PC World

Related Reading:

There’s No Good Reason to Delay Data Liquidity and Information Sharing in Healthcare..

Wisconsin Health Information Exchange RHIO connected with Amalga from Microsoft

Most Hospital Patients Unable to Identify Their Physicians - Survey

Silverlight Blamed for Restructuring at Netflix, It works too good, Could do the same for Medical Records with Common User Interface

EHRs need Standard Templates – So Let’s Look at the Common User Interface Project, a lot of the work is already in progress and partially completed

Common User Interface – EHR Development Work in Progress

Common User Interface – Update and walk through video

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