Journal of biomedical informatics
-
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usability of emergency department (ED) software prototypes developed for Tablet personal computers (Tablet PCs) in order to keep electronic health records (EHRs) of patients errorless and accessible through mobile technologies. In order to serve this purpose, two alternative prototypes were developed for Tablet PCs: Mobile Emergency Department Software (MEDS) and Mobile Emergency Department Software Iconic (MEDSI) among which the user might choose the more appropriate one for ED operations based on a usability analysis involving the target users. ⋯ The study provides two important contributions to the extant literature. First, it addresses a topic and methodology that serves potentially interesting to the biomedical informatics community. Drawing on good background information and appropriate context, it involves various aspects of usability testing. Another contribution of the study lies in its examination of two different prototypes during the design phase involving the target users.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Showing Your Work: Impact of annotating electronic prescriptions with decision support results.
e-Prescribing systems with decision support do not routinely communicate an adequate amount of information regarding the prescribers' decision to pharmacists. To address this communication gap in the e-prescribing process, we implemented a system called Show Your Work (SYW) that appends alerts and override comments to e-prescriptions generated by an e-prescribing system. To assess the quantitative impact of this system, we conducted a randomized, double-blinded, controlled study to assess pharmacy callback rates and types, and to uncover any unintended consequences of the annotations. ⋯ Most respondents agreed (69%) that SYW favorably impacted callbacks--especially with pediatric prescriptions (82%). Comments suggested that SYW increased callbacks where necessary and decreased them in other situations, but did not contribute to unnecessary callbacks. These findings support the continued and potentially expanded use of SYW by e-prescribing systems to enhance communication with pharmacists.