User Experience, usability, and user-centered design principles were on the forefront of conversations around the topic of clinician/patient satisfaction, safety-enhanced design, and value optimization. Here are a few highlights of the programming and events taking place at HIMSS15 related to the topic of health IT UX.

The Joint Commission issued a sentinel event alert warning that while electronic health records and other health IT have the potential to improve care quality and safety, such technologies can pose inherent risks to patients, Modern Healthcare reports.

In late February, Thomas Mason took over as CMO at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. In his new role, Mason oversees ONC programs and clinical coordination within the agency.

Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) reintroduced legislation that calls for the development of an integrated electronic health record system for members of the military and veterans, Politico's "Morning eHealth" reports (Allen et al., "Morning eHealth," Politico, 3/25).

Click here for Update: The Final Rule for the 2015 edition certification has been released.

Senate and House lawmakers introduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation (HR 1470) to permanently replace Medicare's sustainable growth rate formula that includes several health IT provisions, Modern Healthcare reports (Tahir, Moder

A new Black Book Market Research report names the top inpatient electronic health record vendors based on six client experience categories, EHR Intelligence reports.

Research published finds that the laboratory graphs displayed by many commercial EHRs present information in potentially dangerous ways.

The authors urged ONC to stringently oversee testing of the software - although FDA has said it won't regulate it.

The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association examined the presentation of clinical lab test results in eight EHRs and found that most failed to graph the data in completely clear ways.

Hospital errors could be better avoided by improving the interoperability of medical devices, according to a survey of 526 registered nurses conducted by Harris Poll, FierceHealthIT reports (Dvorak, FierceHealthIT, 3/12).

Several health IT stakeholders say technology will play a key role in CMS' new "Next Generation Accountable Care Organization Model," which will expand coverage of telehealth services, FierceHealthIT reports (Bowman, FierceHealthIT, 3/11).

Allowing patients to view their electronic health records during hospital stays does not drastically increase nurses' and physicians' workloads, according to a University of Colorado study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, Reuters reports.

A coalition of mental health professionals and advocates has asked Congress to approve financial incentives to help mental health providers adopt electronic health records, but some professionals have raised privacy concerns about the use of EHRs among such providers, Kaiser Health News/Washington Post reports.

In a Health Affairs blog post, a group of Republican senators write, "There is inconclusive evidence that the [HITECH ACT] has achieved its goals of increasing efficiency, reducing costs and improving the quality of care."

The House Ways and Means Committee passed by voice vote the Electronic Health Fairness Act (HR 887), which would exempt ambulatory surgical centers from the meaningful use program, Politico's "Morning eHealth" reports (Gold et al., "Morning eHealth," Politico, 2/27).

While the adoption of electronic health records among emergency and outpatient departments increased between 2006 and 2011, physicians in such departments largely struggled to use the EHR systems to achieve meaningful use objectives, according to a new report released by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, Medscape reports.

Few patients use health IT tools to connect with their doctors and access their personal health data, according to a new survey from Salesforce, MobiHealthNews reports.

The survey polled about 1,700 U.S. adults.

Just 15% of meaningful use Stage 2-eligible professionals have attested to the program's requirements, according to the latest data from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Becker's Health IT & CIO Review reports (Jayanthi, Becker's Health IT & CIO Review, 2/4).

On April 27, 2004, President George W. Bush proclaimed a bold goal for the nation: "Within the next 10 years, electronic health records will ensure that complete health care information is available for most Americans at the time and place of care, no matter where it originates. ... These electronic health records will be designed to share information privately and securely among and between health care providers when authorized by the patient." 

More than 10 years later, most observers within the U.S. health care system and the health IT industry would agree that this goal of interoperability has not yet been achieved, and may not even be within clear sight.  Although pockets of interoperability exist, the EHR systems used by inpatient, outpatient and ancillary providers generally cannot exchange patient data electronically, sometimes even among systems developed by the same EHR vendors. Although myriad interoperability standards exist on paper, real world connectivity between individual EHR systems still requires extensive custom interface development, attended by large and often prohibitive costs.