AMIA: 10 Ways To Improve EHR Safety, Usability

In response to questions about efficacy and safety of electronic health records, the American Medical Informatics Association published a position paper in its journal outlining 10 ways to reduce errors, imcrease patient safety and improve efficiency.

"These AMIA recommendations are intended to stimulate informed debate, provide a plan to increase understanding of the impact of usability on the effective use of health IT and lead to safer and higher quality care with the adoption of useful and usable EHR systems," according to the paper.

AMIA's "Task Force on Usability," which included EHR vendors and professionals from academic settings, reviewed the vendor-to-user EHR process before making their recommendations. Some users lament that EHRs are designed for clinical transactions rather than clinical care, require extensive training for proper use, and take too much time to use--especially when poorly designed.