A new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality examines the use of health IT in ambulatory care practice redesign and the subsequent impact on patients and provider workflow.

A coalition of 35 medical societies led by the American Medical Association sent a letter to National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo calling for major changes to the meaningful use electronic health record certification program, The Hill reports.

NIST has launched a Wiki to support collaboration among all stakeholders in developing tools for measuring and evaluating the usability of Health IT systems.

Usability is "the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use" [ISO9241]. Usability represents an important yet often overlooked factor impacting the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health record (EHR) systems. Without usable systems, doctors, medical technicians, nurses, administrative staff, consumers, and other users cannot gain the potential benefits of features and functions of EHR systems.