DNP 805 Week 8 Evaluation of Health Care Technology GCU

DNP 805 Week 8 Evaluation of Health Care Technology GCU

Evaluation of Healthcare Technology

An electronic health record () is a computerized form of the traditional patient charts shared among multiple providers and healthcare facilities. EHRs are increasingly being adopted in healthcare organizations as more patient information is becoming digital Tsai et al., 2020). Besides, there is a growing number of healthcare consumers who request to have mobile access to their health information. The EHR is associated with several benefits, including its capacity to automatically share and update patient data among different practices and organizations. It is more efficient to store and retrieve information from the EHR, and providers can share multimedia information, including imaging results, between locations (Tsai et al., 2020). Furthermore, the EHR is preferred for its ability to link patient records to pertinent and current research sources. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the elements of EHR, evaluation of these elements, and suggestions for improvement.

How the EHR Would Be Measured or Evaluated

The will be evaluated if its standards are compliant with the HIPAA act, which mandates that patient data be kept private and secure. It will also be evaluated if it is compliant with Meaningful usage and ICD standards, which focus on the efficiency and interoperability of the integrated system. Secondly, the EHR will be evaluated for ease of use since it is purposed to improve the effectiveness of clinical practices, it and thus should be easy to use for medical and non-medical staff (Howe et al., 2018). The EHR will also be evaluated on seamless integration with existing workflows. An organization usually has existing workflows in its systems, which are often integrated with the EHR solution. The EHR would thus be analyzed and evaluated for ease of integration with the workflows and systems. Furthermore, it will be assessed for compatibility with the organization’s needs and requirements (Howe et al., 2018). Decision support features are essential in any EHR as they guide decision-making and generating reports. The EHR’s decision support features will thus be measured for their efficiency and performance of several operational factors. In addition, the EHR will be evaluated for its backup and restoration abilities and if they require minimal user intervention.

Elements That Will Be Used To Evaluate the User-Technology Interface

Elements of efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction will be employed in assessing the EHR user interface. The efficiency of the interface will be evaluated through one-on-one usability testing. It involves encouraging the end-users (health providers) to complete vital assignments in the EHR system and obtaining performance data in each assignment (Monica, 2019). The efficiency of the user-technology interface will be measured through its performance data. The results from the usability testing will establish whether the EHR interfaces is inefficient and if it necessitates providers to carry out a numerous interactions to accomplish requirements for reporting and documentation.

The effectiveness of the EHR interface will be evaluated using risk analysis exercises, which establish the ability of a system to evade errors when carrying out tasks. The FMEA, a risk management tool, can be used to analyze the potential failure of the user interface using the criteria of occurrence, severity, and detection (Monica, 2019). The occurrence will be measured by establishing the grounds of failures in the interface and their recurrence rate. The severity criterion assesses the effect the shortcomings of the interface have on the end-users. The criterion of detection assesses the possibility that the EHR system will detect failures in the interface. Evaluating user satisfaction is essential in establishing EHR interface usability (Monica, 2019). User satisfaction can be evaluated by prompting users to attend to patient care tasks using the EHR and evaluate the simplicity and quality of the EHR experience.

Assessment to Determine Functionality

The functionality of the user-technology interface will be assessed using the elements of efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction. Under the element of efficiency, users will be requested to record crucial pointers such as the time taken to carry out a specific clinical job and the frequency of interactions needed to finish the job (Monica, 2019). They will also provide information on the screens they went through to finish a patient case within clinical workflows and the period taken to finalize a series of commands in the EHR system. Documenting the period spent carrying out jobs using the EHR can determine the system’s level of functionality.

Effectiveness will determine functionality through one-on-one usability testing. This will involve health providers using the EHR recording the number or frequency of errors when using it, pathway used to finish a clinical job, degree of errors, and the frequency of requesting help when using the EHR (Monica, 2019). Lastly, the EHR’s interface functionality will be assessed through the rate of user satisfaction. End-users will use the System Usability Scale (SUS) to give usability ratings. The SUS is a quick standard tool that measures the usability of the EHR to determine functionality (Monica, 2019). It has a 10-item questionnaire containing five response options for respondents. Examining data on user performance and SUS ratings on user satisfaction helps identify the EHR design that best meets health providers’ needs and promotes higher levels of clinical efficiency.

Suggestions for Improvement

Improved EHR usability results in greater EHR adoption rates, reduced clinical errors, decreased clinician burnout, improved patient safety, and financial benefits. The efficiency of the EHR can be improved through testing and optimization. Health organizations can carry out internal tests to uphold EHR usability during the life of the EHR system. The tests help identify gaps affecting the EHR’s efficiency and correct them promptly. The EHR interface can also be optimized to improve usability (Howe et al., 2018). In addition, EHR usability can be improved through continuous staff (end-users) training. Health organizations should provide training opportunities for their providers on the use of the EHR to enable them to develop advanced mastery of EHR functionality (Ball et al., 2021). Training would ameliorate most user-technology interface challenges, thus improving the EHR’s effectiveness, efficiency, and user experience.

Conclusion

The EHR would be evaluated in the following aspects: standards compliance, ease of use, seamless integration with existing workflows, compatibility for practice, decision support features, and backup and restoration. The EHR’s user-technology interface will be evaluated through its efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction. End-users will be involved in the evaluation by providing information on how they found the EHR effective and efficient when completing a clinical task within the EHR system. EHR usability can be improved through testing, optimization, and staff training.

References

Ball, R. V., Miller, D. B., Wallace, S., Macias, K. C., Ibrahim, M., Gonzaga, E. R., … & Sawyer, B. D. (2021, June). Optimizing Electronic Health Records Through Readability. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care (Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 65-70). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/2327857921101028

Howe, J. L., Adams, K. T., Hettinger, A. Z., & Ratwani, R. M. (2018). Electronic health record usability issues and potential contribution to patient harm. Jama, 319(12), 1276-1278. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.1171

Monica, K. (2019, March). How to Design a Comprehensive EHR Usability Assessment. https://ehrintelligence.com/features/how-to-design-a-comprehensive-ehr-usability-assessment

Tsai, C. H., Eghdam, A., Davoody, N., Wright, G., Flowerday, S., & Koch, S. (2020). Effects of Electronic Health Record Implementation and Barriers to Adoption and Use: A Scoping Review and Qualitative Analysis of the Content. Life (Basel, Switzerland), 10(12), 327. https://doi.org/10.3390/life10120327