Healthcare Usability

National Health IT Week Event -- October 3, 2017 | 10am - 12pm ET

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Hubert H. Humphrey Building - Great Hall
200 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC

Join ONC for two panels of distinguished public and private sector partners highlighting advancements in interoperability and usability. This event will be hosted by Principal Deputy National Coordinator for Health IT Genevieve Morris and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Technology Reform John Fleming, MD.

The Joint Commission has proposed changes to its accreditation standards to account for direct-to-patient telehealth services. The new standards will apply to Joint Commission-accredited hospitals and ambulatory health care organizations offering direct-to-patient telehealth services. Accredited hospitals and organizations, as well as entrepreneurial telemedicine companies that contract with such hospitals, should be mindful of these proposed rule changes and how they will affect their telehealth services and operations.

In a public comment on the certification process, Drummond (one of the ONC ATCB's) stated that

"...the usability test effort is not a small undertaking for EHR vendors. In fact, it {is} essentially one of the most difficult criteria to complete."

For expert Usability evaluations of your companies EHR: Contact The Usability People


Usability reports produced by The Usability People adhere to the NISTIR 7742 CCIF format suitable for submission to an ONC-ACB. We can also provide a set of prioritized, detailed, and actionable feedback that you can take directly to your design and development teams for implementation.

With the January 2018 deadline fast approaching and very few EHRs certified for the ONC 2015 Edition Certification, Doctors will get a one year extension so that they can continue to use 2014 edition of EHRs into next year. Instead of getting a 25 percent reduction in their reimbursement payment, those that are using a 2015 edition certified EHR will gain a 10 percent bonus in the meaningful use part of their MIPS payments. Full details are posted in the Federal Register. This post will be updated when we get a chance to read the 1000+ page document.

The first Health Datapalooza of the Trump era was pretty reassuring for people in the health IT community:

Those feelings of relief are mostly down to HHS Secretary Tom Price. The primary takeaway is Price’s commitment to simplify reporting and usability burdens in EHRs.

“The promise of health IT is so great, but we must recognize that a one-size-fits-all, inflexible system for our nation’s patients and physicians simply will not work,” he said, adding that physicians were taking too much time “tapping on screens and keyboards rather than helping patients.”

In an effort to elevate the Veterans Experience Office (VEO), the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Dr. David J. Shulkin, on April 4th 2017 announced the appointment of Lynda Davis, PhD, as Chief Veterans Experience Officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

We were recently exploring the new updated Certified HealthIT Product List (CHPL) site (https://chpl.healthit.gov/#/search ) was were shocked that as of today (Jan 11, 2017) there are only 3 Health IT vendors that have products that have been Safety-enhanced Design certified for the ONC 2015 Edition.

We're glad that for most EHRs the usability test performed as part of their certification is posted on the website of the certifying body (eg, Drummond, Infoguard, etc)

Guest post by: Janne Pitkänen CEO at Adusso

It's challenging to evaluate usability when buying an IT system. Would it even be possible to predict an IT system's value in real use?

"In public procurement, we always need to choose the cheapest one." Do we?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announced a proposal to ban electrical stimulation devices (ESDs) used for self-injurious or aggressive behavior because they present an unreasonable and substantial risk to public health that cannot be corrected or eliminated through changes to the labeling.

ONC has issued a request for information for your thoughts on how to measure interoperability. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) sets an objective to achieve the widespread exchange of health information through the use of interoperable certified electronic health records and directs the Department of Health and Human Services to establish metrics in consultation with you – the health IT community – to see if that objective has been met.

Specifically, They are asking for input on:

Variation in Quality of Urgent Health Care Provided During Commercial Virtual Visits

The following is an abstract of a JAMA article posted online here: http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2511324

ONC Health IT Certification Program: Enhanced Oversight and Accountability Proposed Rule

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is seeking grant proposals to generate new knowledge on health IT safety.

AHRQ is interested in funding applications to conduct research on safe health IT practices specifically related to the design, implementation, usability, and safe use of health IT by all users, including nurses, physicians, patients, and caregivers.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announced its sixth Annual Meeting will be held May 31 – June 2, 2016, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

The Annual Meeting is an opportunity for a wide array of public and private sector partners to discuss ways to leverage health IT to achieve better care, smarter spending, and healthier people.

The Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) has released the proceedings for “Accessibility and Usability in Health Information Technology: A Research & Action Conference to Empower People with Disabilities, Older Adults, and Caregivers”, held on September 17 – 18, 2015.

The Provider User-Experience (UX) Challenge incents the development of applications that use open, standardized APIs to enable innovative ways for providers to interact with patient health data. This challenge will focus on demonstrating how data made accessible to apps through APIs can positively impact providers’ experience with EHRs by making clinical workflows more intuitive, specific to clinical specialty, and actionable.

Established in 2004, the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Association is comprised of companies that supply the vast majority of operational EHRs to physicians’ practices and hospitals across the United States. The EHR Association operates on the premise that the rapid, widespread adoption of EHRs will, as a key enabler of healthcare transformation, help improve the quality of patient care as well as the productivity and sustainability of our healthcare system.

HIMSS16 is presenting the following:

User Experience Forum Improving User Experience: A Roadmap to Safer, More Effective Health IT

“There is overwhelming evidence that usability of health IT systems impacts patient safety, and is crucial to adoption and effective use. There is a common misunderstanding that usability is only about basic screen design such as font size, color, and layout, but a better understanding is that usability needs to support the needs of clinicians of patients,”

- Raj Ratwani, Ph.D., scientific director at the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare at the Washington D.C.-based MedStar Health.

Nearly 75% of office-based providers in 2014 had a certified electronic health record system, up from 68% in 2013, according to new CDC data, STAT News' "Morning Rounds" reports (Thielking, "Morning Rounds," STAT News, 1/27).