Design Leads to Meaningful Use of the U.S. Healthcare Industry’s Systems

The Situation

The Health Information Technology (health IT or HIT) is clamoring to certify software products as 'Qualified ' Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems in order to be eligible for subsidies outlined in Obama's Stimulus Bill. Current industry certification criteria only address vast inventories of features, functions, interoperability and security in vague categories of "meaningful use", forcing users to conform to the features and functions of the software. What use are EMR/EHR systems that don't support the way healthcare professionals actually work? What does "meaningful use" really mean to the people who have to use the systems every day?

The Challenge

With every EMR/EHR system developer jumping through the same qualification hoop, what's the benefit for consumers? And what is the net benefit for patients, caregivers, and administrators? Some of the greatest challenges plaguing software in the healthcare space are training, user adoption, and usability. The current health IT systems lack self-evident designs, and design is not even mentioned in CCHIT Certification Criteria.

The Opportunity

As the field of EMR/EHR system development clamors to place checks in certification boxes, there is a real opportunity to set the bar higher and separate from the masses-to make "meaningful use" connote useful, usable, and desirable to use to get the job done. Minimal training, increased user adoption, and quantifiably superior user effectiveness are criteria few vendors in this space are considering, even though all users and purchasers are clearly expressing a desire for these requirements.

Electronic Ink knows that the surest way of building criteria for minimal system training, increased user-adoption rates and optimal user effectiveness is working directly with businesses and their customers.

Electronic Ink's Role

Since 1992, Electronic Ink has effectively brought to the software development environment both clinicians and administrators who understand the realities of work in a clinical setting. Through methods rooted in Design, software development teams benefit from more accurate requirements, an earlier vision of the user interface, and pre-development proof that end users will be able to perform effectively with the system.

Find out more about our experience. Read our Case Studies.