jaredsinclair.com
I'm a registered nurse. I make apps for nurses.
I live in Nashville. Contact me on gmail at jaredsinclair.rn
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Nurses Need Better EMRs
There’s always a lot of stink from physicians over usability problems with EHRs: too many clicks, too many contextual menus, etc. The gist of these complaints is, “Physicians aren’t data entry clerks!” The computer is getting in the way of their interactions with their patients.So what about nurses? Aren’t we laboring under the same demand to eat our cake and document it, too?
Nurses are expected to document innumerable facts: vital signs as often as every fiften minutes, turning a patient, fluid intake and output, medications, pain questionnaires, etc. Hospitals require that these data be entered into a computer for all patients by the end of each shift. Many nurses have to stay late after their shift ends to complete their charting. This costs hospitals a lot of money and employee satisfaction.
We can’t avoid the need for thorough documentation. To some extent, data entry is part of every nurse’s job description. Physicians need the facts that we document in order to make informed decisions. Hospitals need them to measure cost-effectiveness and to demonstrate commitments to safety.
What do nurses need in an EMR?
Nurses need an EMR that doesn’t exist yet. We need one that enables us to document more data in less time. Existing EMRs are notoriously user-unfriendly. They seem designed by developers with no understanding of bedside nursing, and whose primary concerns were compliance and cost. Workflow efficiency came last, if it came at all.
Contemporary EMRs are only contemporary insofar as they are being sold in 2010. They are otherwise relics of the 1990s (or worse). One finds endless tabs of little grey boxes and drop-down menus without any visual cues to separate the meaningful facts from the JCAHO-compliant fluff.
Companies like Apple and Nintendo have spent decades reinventing and refining the way that we interact with technology. Apple has even published a lengthy document detailing the human interface guidelines they encourage app developers to follow to make their apps more user-friendly. Documents like these are widely available. Why don’t EMR developers take advantage of them? Could rounded corners and simplified interfaces really be that expensive? Wouldn’t ease of use be a marketing point that spurs widespread adoption?
If the best UI design practices were integrated into our EMRs, it could allow nurses to fully document their day, in real time, and in less time, freeing us to spend more time doing what we went to nursing school to do: care for our patients.
