Method Inform Med
-
Healthcare professionals in hospital care increasingly use small-screen handheld computers. Studies that have investigated doctors' concerns about handheld usage have mainly focused on technical, organizational and performance issues. Very few have looked at the effects of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) on the interaction between physician and patient. ⋯ Despite the many benefits, PDA usage at the point-of-care comes with the increased risk of distractions for physicians and can cause a negative patient experience. Designers of point-of-care systems need to be aware of, and address, the problems with handhelds and learn from the attributes and access capabilities of paper charts.
-
Progress in the medical sciences, together with related technologies, in the past has led to higher specialization and has created a strong need to exchange health information across institutional borders. The concept of electronic health records (EHR) was introduced to fulfill these needs. Remarkably, many EHR introduction projects ran into trouble, not least because they lacked the acceptance of EHR among physicians. Negative emotions, such as anxiety and fear due to a lack of information, may cause change barriers and hamper physicians' acceptance of such projects. ⋯ Impartial information campaigns that are tailored to the physicians' needs and questions as along with a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis could benefit the physicians' opinion of EHRs.