poor usability

See the following -

ECRI Execs: Poor Usability, Missing Safeguards Lead Health IT Trouble Spots

Jessica Davis | Healthcare IT News | March 2, 2016

Health information technology safety is much like highway safety: It's not just the driver or vehicle that causes an accident, but often other contributing factors that culminate into bigger problems. HIT errors don't have a single culprit like product malfunction or user error - all signs point to a bigger issue and call for behavioral and industry change. This is according to Ronni P. Solomon, executive vice president, general counsel, ECRI Institute, who opened a HIMSS16 session on Wednesday about health it safety hazards, by shedding light on elements that contribute to errors and promoting a call to action on how health IT is managed...

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Electronic Health Records: a “Quadruple Win,” a “Quadruple Failure,” or Simply Time for a Reboot?

Michael Hochman | Journal of General Internal Medicine | February 5, 2018

Just a decade ago, when paper charts were commonplace in the USA, it seemed that electronic health records (EHRs) were destined to transform the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery, as well as the care experience for patients and clinicians...The reality over the ensuring years has, to put it mildly, not met expectations. According to a 2014 analysis led by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information,2 over 80% of US doctors now use EHRs. Yet, many of the predictions about the benefits of EHRs have yet to materialize to the extent predicted. ..Noteworthy concerns include egregious medical errors resulting from design glitches3, charting templates filled extensively with meaningless boilerplate, the common practice of pasting old notes4 that makes it difficult to know which documentation is “real,” “alert fatigue”5 due to excessive EHR warnings, and even reduced communication among clinical team members.6

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The Ransomware Attacks on Hospitals Are (Cyber) Criminal

One of the redeeming aspects of crises is that, amidst all the confusion, suffering, and loss, there are usually moments of grace, of humans showing their best nature... Unfortunately, crises also tend to bring out the worst of our natures... And then there are the cyberattacks. Last week the federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI, and HHS issued a joint alert Ransomware Activity Targeting the Healthcare and Public Health Sector, warning that they have "credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers." I'll spare you the technical details of the expected attack strategies or suggested mitigation efforts, but I will note that they warned: "CISA, FBI, and HHS do not recommend paying ransom." Read More »

Why Health Care Tech Is Still So Bad

Robert M. Wachter | New York Times | March 21, 2015

Last year, I saw an ad recruiting physicians to a Phoenix-area hospital. It promoted state-of-the-art operating rooms, dazzling radiology equipment and a lovely suburban location. But only one line was printed in bold: “No E.M.R.” In today’s digital era, a modern hospital deemed the absence of an electronic medical record system to be a premier selling point.

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