Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA
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J Am Med Inform Assoc · Mar 2000
Comparative StudyComparing response time, errors, and satisfaction between text-based and graphical user interfaces during nursing order tasks.
Despite the general adoption of graphical users interfaces (GUIs) in health care, few empirical data document the impact of this move on system users. This study compares two distinctly different user interfaces, a legacy text-based interface and a prototype graphical interface, for differences in nurses' response time (RT), errors, and satisfaction when the interfaces are used in the performance of computerized nursing order tasks. In a medical center on the East Coast of the United States, 98 randomly selected male and female nurses completed 40 tasks using each interface. ⋯ Therefore, the results indicated that the use of a prototype GUI for nursing orders significantly enhances user performance and satisfaction. Consideration should be given to redesigning older user interfaces to create more modern ones by using human factors principles and input from user-centered focus groups. Future work should examine prospective nursing interfaces for highly complex interactions in computer-based patient records, detail the severity of errors made on line, and explore designs to optimize interactions in life-critical systems.
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J Am Med Inform Assoc · Mar 2000
Implementation of clinical guidelines via a computer charting system: effect on the care of febrile children less than three years of age.
The authors have shown that clinical guidelines embedded in an electronic medical record improved the quality, while lowering the cost, of care for health care workers who incurred occupational exposures to body fluid. They seek to determine whether this system has similar effects on the emergency department care of young children with febrile illness. ⋯ The intervention markedly improved documentation, had little effect on the appropriateness of the process of care, and had no effect on charges. Results for the febrile child module differ from those for the module for occupational blood and body fluid exposure (a more focused and straightforward medical condition), underscoring the need for implementation methods to be tailored to specific clinical complaints.
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J Am Med Inform Assoc · Jan 2000
Assessing the quality of clinical data in a computer-based record for calculating the pneumonia severity index.
This study examined whether clinical data routinely available in a computerized patient record (CPR) can be used to drive a complex guideline that supports physicians in real time and at the point of care in assessing the risk of mortality for patients with community-acquired pneumonia. ⋯ From a clinical perspective, the current level of data quality in the HELP System supports the automation and the prospective evaluation of the Pneumonia Severity Index as a computerized decision support tool.
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J Am Med Inform Assoc · Jul 1999
Informatics at the National Institutes of Health: a call to action.
Biomedical informatics, imaging, and engineering are major forces driving the knowledge revolutions that are shaping the agendas for biomedical research and clinical medicine in the 21st century. These disciplines produce the tools and techniques to advance biomedical research, and continually feed new technologies and procedures into clinical medicine. To sustain this force, an increased investment is needed in the physics, biomedical science, engineering, mathematics, information science, and computer science undergirding biomedical informatics, engineering, and imaging. ⋯ Bills are being introduced into the 106th Congress to authorize such an entity. The pathway is long and arduous, from the introduction of bills in the House and Senate to the realization of new opportunities for biomedical informatics, engineering, and imaging at the NIH. There are many opportunities for medical informaticians to contribute to this realization.