Product design and testing of health information technology systems should begin with the end in mind to improve the user experience. Ross Teague, Ph.D., director of user experience at Allscripts, shares six points his organization follows to ensure that products meet the needs of clinicians who use them for patient care.
Question: What is the connection between clinician burden and product design and testing?
Dr. Ross Teague: Clinicians, as end-users of our products, want the IT systems and applications they use to simplify, not complicate, their day-to-day procedures in caring for patients. Thus, we have always focused on measuring product usability and process improvement so that physicians and all clinicians, and the patients they serve, benefit from using our solutions.
However, evidence exists that connects clinician burden to lower quality care and possible harm to patients. Thus, several of us from different departments came together to address this topic and identify what to do as a company.
Q: What is Allscripts doing to reduce clinician burden?
RT: Allscripts is currently reducing clinician burden thorough six points of commitments:
- Uphold robust user-centered design (UCD) process. We follow best practices in user-centered design. Working closely in partnership with our clients, we involve users early and often throughout the design process.
- Maintain UCD tools for design teams. We use evidence-based UCD tools, such as a detailed Allscripts interface style guide and best-practice design patterns.
- Measure usability. We evaluate our progress and are committed to continuously improving the objective and subjective usability of our solutions
- Educate our associates. We have an "empathy program" to help our associates understand clinician burden, its causes and how it affects our users.
- Provide strong industry leadership. We are moving the clinician experience conversation beyond usability and promoting a Helper Philosophy, which encourages people to explore and address root causes of frustration with more helpful solutions
- Drive change with cross-disciplinary task force. We engage experts from different teams — including clinical, user experience, client delivery, patient safety, marketing and other disciplines — to collaborate for a comprehensive response to clinician burden.
Q: Can you elaborate on the Helper Philosophy at Allscripts?
RT: Usability is necessary, but we need to understand the technology and how it will be leveraged in a thoughtful way to help. For example, a usable software solution must meet the end goals of physicians, such as writing notes, orienting to a patient, placing orders, or the needs of a nurse providing medication administration management, without assuming that a collection of features will meet these needs.
The question at hand is simply — how can this product make the clinician'’s job better or easier? While we will design a screen that is less burdensome on the eyes of the user, we are moving beyond typical usability metrics to include experience metrics and to deliver products that aren'’t just usable, but also more helpful. We follow best practices and standards, evaluating our progress on measurable goals established early in the process, and innovate on how to deliver more value and support to users with our product. Basically, – we want to make sure what we deliver meets the needs of those using the products.
Note: Allscripts is among the more than 150 network organizations that have committed to solving clinician burnout through an initiative introduced by the National Academy of Medicine