News Feature | July 30, 2015

EHR Design Focuses On Docs, Improves Workflow

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Patients Like Doctors Who email

It’s simple really; EHRs designed with physicians in mind can improve workflow in ambulatory settings.

Designing EHRs around the clinicians who use them on a daily basis seems logical and, according to researchers from Ohio State University, NIST and Johns Hopkins University, creating records systems based on these factors leads to improved workflow as well.

The study, published in eGems, explains “how insights from a workflow analysis conducted by NIST were implemented in a software prototype developed for a Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA) VAi2 innovation project and associated lessons learned.”

Fierce Health IT reports that during the study, researchers implemented 12 of the 15 recommendations to improve workflow made by NIST. The policies they tested included:

  • scheduling support with at-a-glance overviews of patients for the day
  • supporting established diagnosis-based workflow
  • supporting communication with specialist physicians about referrals and consultations

They found using these recommendations and using a clinician-centered approach to EHRs led to a unique perspective which "more centrally revolves around the needs of primary care providers – including physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners."

“Workflow, usability, and patient safety can be enhanced through clinician-centered design of electronic health records,” concluded researchers. “The lessons learned from implementing NIST recommendations to improve workflow in ambulatory care using an EHR provide a first step in moving from a billing-centered perspective on how to maintain accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date information about a group of patients to a clinician-centered perspective.”

“These recommendations point the way towards a ‘patient visit management system,’ which incorporates broader notions of supporting workload management, supporting flexible flow of patients and tasks, enabling accountable distributed work across members of the clinical team, and supporting dynamic tracking of steps in tasks that have longer time distributions.”