We are pleased to announce that our talk, "Conducting Usability Evaluations for Meaning Use Stage 2 Funding " was presented at the OSEHRA 2nd Annual Summit.

When: Friday, September 6, 2013 10:30am White Oak Rm B

Where:
Bethesda North Marriott Conference Center

For information on conducting and reporting on the §170.314(g)(3) Safety-enhanced Design Criteria for meaningful use stage two certification see:

The new mark for certified electronic health records technology was unveiled Wednesday and will appear on EHR products that have been certified by an ONC-Authorized Certification Body, indicating that the product meets the 2014 Edition Standards and Certification Criteria.

Eligible professionals and hospitals must demonstrate meaningful use of EHR technology that has been certified under the ONC Health Information Technology Certification Program to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive payments.

The federal government is happy to point out that more than 50 percent of physicians and 80 percent of hospitals are using electronic health record (EHR) systems, with those users having received some $14.6 billion in meaningful use incentives initially allocated in the 2009 stimulus.

In an effort to align the clinical quality measures used within the EHR Incentive Program with the goals of CMS and the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Quality Strategy (NQS), and recommendations from the Health Information Technology Policy Committee, each clinical quality measure has been assessed against six domains based on the NQS’s six priorities.

We found an article at KevinMD written by a cardiologist named David Mokotoff.

This article is a great read for gaining the perspective of an doctor that has had to deal with a number of the issues (mostly usability based) with some of the EHR systems he has been required to use. His frustration with the status quo is evidence that things need to change. EHR Vendors need to understand their end-users and establish a User-centered design approach.

What a great headline! In an article published by Venture Beat, they describe how nurses are truly the head cornerstone to EHR adoption.

Usability is often blamed by physicians' as the root cause of their dissatisfaction with their electronic health record systems (EHRs)

Some of the usability issues are addressed in Stage 2 of the ONC Meaningful Use incentive program.

During that stage, usability has been made part of the certification process. Vendors must go through formal usability evaluations in order to have their products approved as complying with meaningful use.

Improved efficiency was one promise that proponents of electronic health record systems often touted to physicians to persuade them to adopt the systems. But many doctors have found the only way they can accomplish certain tasks in a reasonable amount of time is to do them on paper.

Satisfaction and usability ratings for certified electronic health record systems have decreased since 2010, according to a report from the American College of Physicians and AmericanEHR Partners, Medical News Today reports. The report was released this week at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's annual conference.
The report is based on 4,279 responses to multiple surveys of clinicians conducted between March 2010 and December 2012 (Medical News Today, 3/7).

Report Findings

We have been big fans of World Usability Day for many, many years. This year the topic is healthcare related and we are very excited.

We've been working on creating set of best practices for mobile healthcare solutions during the past few months, and it has made us think about the evolution of user experiences and their underlying technology.