Dive Brief:
- The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) has issued a new report to help standardize patient safety-focused usability guidelines, with a focus on mitigating EHR use errors caused by poor design and implementation.
- The group analyzed five methods of human performance data collection from different disciplines to provide a comprehensive overview of the numerous ways EHRs are utilized.
- Data collection involving two multi-hospital health systems included an online survey, follow-up interviews with users, usability testing of five EHR systems and expert reviews of those EHRs.
Dive Insight:
From the gathered data, which showed "strong congruence," NIST developed human-factors guidelines for standardization. Three key risk areas identified include: Consistently displaying information key to patient identification in a reserved area to avoid wrong patient errors; providing cues to reduce risks of entering information and orders in the wrong patient's chart; and supporting efficient and easy identification of inaccurate, outdated or inappropriate items in lists of grouped information by presenting that data in a well-organized manner.
Although identity, as well as consistency and integration of information are key to safety, poor EHR design can put patients at risk when clinicians use workarounds like "paper 'shadow charts' or whiteboards," according to the NIST report. The report concluded, "Ultimately, this research demonstrates that patient safety is negatively affected when critical safety tasks are performed with the support of badly designed EHRs."