This article discusses the importance of human factors in system design, specifically focusing on Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems. It explores the usability requirements and evaluation methodology for EHR systems.
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System Design1 HUMAN FACTORS IN SYSTEMS DESIGN By (Name) (Course) (Professor’s Name) (Institution) (State) (Date)
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System Design2 Part ONE: The interactive system and its users: Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems Currently, interactive systems are used in different areas such as agriculture and education. An interactive system can be defined as a computer system that involves interaction between human and the computer (Broy and Stølen, 2012). Some of the examples of these systems include automatic ticket vending machines and e-commerce websites. However, this paper has focused on Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems. These systems are used widely in hospitals to enable medical practitioners to record, retrieve and monitor patient’s health records with a lot of ease. Also, it enable medical professionals from different units such as laboratory, intensive care, surgery and emergency among others to access and update patient’s records from central database, therefore enhancing the treatment process (Narayan, Gagné and Safavi-Naini, 2010, p.49). Moreover, EHR also provides reminders such as the time at which patients are supposed to undergo operations. Medical professionals such as immunologists, cardiologists, psychiatrists and surgeons are the primary users of EHR systems since they have the permission to read and update patient’s records directly. In contrast, patients provide information that is recorded into EHR systems, hence they are secondary users (Chen, Lu and Jan, 2012, p.3377). Part TWO: The use cases EHR system has many use cases that explain how it works. However, this paper has focused only in laboratory section. i.Locate data: A Requesting Caregiver (RC) locates patient’s laboratory data from various RHIOs (Madden et al., 2016, p.1145). ii.Contact Responder: Here, the RC establishes connection with responder’s system.
System Design3 iii.Validation: Having established connection with responder’s system, the responder request RC’s credentials such as username and password to ensure that he/she is communicating with the right user of the system. iv.Patient Identity: In this step, the RC and responder discusses about patient’s information to ensure that correct data has been transmitted. Sometimes, this process involves identifier actor. Moreover, patients are also involved in case there are some additional information which are needed for further identification. v.Find available results: In this step, the responder tries to find available laboratory information regarding the patient. This is achieved by entering patient’s credentials into laboratory related systems. However, the RC tells responder to check specific tests to enhance privacy (Sun et al., 2011, p.378). vi.Authorize data release: In this step, the RC asks the patient if data can be released. The patient is requested to sign an authorization form. vii.Review results: Having received signed authorization form, the responder gives the RC permission to view specified results. Besides, the RCs’ are also allowed to import specified results so that they may access them from their EHR system. However, partial import is recommended mostly. viii.Verify receipt: In this step, the RC ascertains that he/she has received specified laboratory data, therefore enhancing reliability. ix.Log transaction: Last but not least, all the necessary information regarding the transaction such as the date are recorded to make sure that they can be accessed easily when the need arises. Besides, these logs can also be accessible to patients. Hence enhancing privacy (McAlearney et al., 2012, p.296).
System Design4 Part THREE: The usability requirements Performance: The EHR system is required to complete transactions in little amount of time. For example, surgeons and other medical practitioners should perform a transaction successfully without any assistance from developers and system programmers. Also, a given process should be completed in a given amount of time like 10 minutes. The most expected time should be 15 minutes (Kopanitsa et al., 2013, p.44). Performing tasks with less time enhances treatment process. In contrast, taking a lot of time to carry out a specific task halts treatment process, hence patient will not receive medication on time resulting in additional health impacts. For example, taking 20 minutes to carry out a specific task such as accessing patient’s records results in inconveniences (Kopanitsa, Tsvetkova and Veseli, 2012, p.360). User friendliness: The users of the EHR system such as nurses should be able to carry out transactions comfortably without straining. For example, medical practitioners should be able to record and retrieve patient’s information easily. These processes should not involve a lot of sophistication. They should take less time to understand how the system works. All activities should be accessed from one screen. However, medical practitioners can switch to other screens when the need arises such as seeking consultation from other professions who are in different departments. Moreover, the EHR system interface should be easily understood by medical specialists at the fast sight. All the buttons, labels and other components such as checkboxes should be captioned clearly to enhance users’ understanding as well as reducing unnecessary confusions (Middleton et al., 2013). Error tolerance: The EHR system should be free from errors. This is because matters dealing with patients are very sensitive and a small mistake can lead to patient’s death.
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System Design5 The system should be able to provide alerts once an error has been detected. Malicious activities such as hacking should be identified automatically by the EHR system so that security personnel can undertake necessary steps to prevent system attacks. Moreover, EHR system should compare patient’s data from different departments and ensure that they are consistent to reduce errors. Lastly, the EHR system should be able to operate properly despite failure of some of its components to ensure that treatment process has not been halted due to several problems not limited to data unavailability and wrong patient’s record (Goldberg et al., 2011, p.190). Flow: The system users should be able to carry out their processes smoothly without any interference from other unrelated programs such as popups. Also, medical practitioners should be able to communicate effectively and efficiently to enhance understanding. For instance, once connection has been established between two medical professionals, it should not be terminated abruptly unless concerned parties have agreed to end it. This enhances mutual understanding, hence facilitating smooth flow of operations in the hospital (Ratwani et al., 2015, p.1185). Productivity: The functionality of the EHR system should be compared with previous systems when determining productivity. For a system to be more productive, normal activities such as accessing information should be carried out very fast than previous systems. Also, medical practitioners like psychiatrists should be able to serve many patients at a given time as compared to replaced systems (Schumacher and Lowry, 2010). Part FOUR: The evaluation methodology The evaluation methodology to be used is cognitive walkthrough. This evaluation method is task-oriented. The following are procedures to be followed while evaluating EHR system:
System Design6 i.Selecting users: In this step, patients and medical specialists who will take part in EHR system evaluation are selected. However, not only experienced users are selected, but also inexperienced (Saitwal et al., 2010, p.503). ii.Define goals: The desired outcomes are explained explicitly. The following are some of the questions that medical specialists are asked in this step: a.Are you able to register and login successfully to the EHR system? b.Are you able to enter and update patient’s data successfully? c.Are you able to access patient’s records successfully? The following are some of the goals of EHR system: i.To reduce the time that is used for recording and accessing patient’s records manually. ii.To enhance quality of patient’s health information. iii.To improve co-ordination between different units within the hospital (Grabenbauer, Fruhling and Windle, 2014, p.2630). iii.Perform the tasks: In this step, users are requested to carry out specific activities using EHR system. Some of the tasks include: a.Register to the EHR system by entering username, department and type of medical specialist such as surgeon. b.After registration, login by providing username and password. c.Click patient registration button and register patients. d.Access patient’s account and update his/her information related to diagnosis. e.Request patient’s records from other units within the hospital such as emergency and intensive care.
System Design7 f.Share patient’s data to the other departments such as laboratory (Bhutkar et al., 2013, p.48). iv.Ask questions: Having carried out specified tasks, you can now ask questions to the users regarding some of the difficulties that they encountered while carrying the tasks. These questions include: a.Have you managed to register to the system successfully? b.What are some of the challenges that you encountered while registering and logging to the EHR system? c.What are some of the challenges that you’ve encountered while registering patients? d.Have you been able to access patient’s records from other units within the hospital? (Horsky et al., 2010, p.784) e.Have you been able to update patient’s record? f.Have you been able to share patient’s records to the system users of other units within the hospital? g.Have you been able to retrieve patient’s data from central database of the hospital? h.Are there any errors that you have encountered while carrying out the tasks? (Karahoca et al., 2010, p.226) Part FIVE: The evaluation The evaluation of the EHR system is based on evaluation methodology, hence indispensable (Viitanen and Nieminen, 2011). The primary users of the system who comprises of medical specialists managed to register successfully into the EHR system. The users entered their
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System Design8 information such as name, username and password successfully and clicked register button. Having registered to the EHR system, the users were also able to login successfully. They inserted their username and password and clicked login button. However, there are few exceptions whereby some users provided wrong password, hence unable to login to their respective accounts (Khajouei, Esfahani and Jahani, 2017, p.24). The users who forgot their passwords tried their level best to reset it by inserting their username and clicking forgot password. However, some of the inexperienced system users failed to login completely as they lacked idea or knowledge of resetting their passwords. Regarding performance, the EHR system users took quite long to register their respective accounts. This is because most of them had not yet used computer systems previously, hence not familiar with different ways in which they can perform some of the tasks easily. Moreover, most of the system users followed design guidelines as specified. For example, the system accepted only password with minimum of 8 characters. Also, password was required to incorporate different symbols not limited to upper case and lower case letters (Nguyen, Bellucci and Nguyen, 2014, p.782). Most of the system users said that they logged in successfully while answering questions. After logging onto EHR system, the system users registered patients in the EHR system as required. They recorded patient’s information such as name, age and gender. Apart from general information, there was an identification key that was unique to all patients. Apart from patient ID, biometric identification was also used to ensure that there is no duplication of medical records. Apart from duplication, identification was also used to prevent fraud and enhance patient safety (Bossen, Jensen and Udsen, 2013, p.948). Some of the patients tried to register twice but the system rejected as the identification key existed in the hospital’s database. The
System Design9 same key was used in different units within the hospital in case the patient has visited more than one units such as intensive care and laboratory sections. Most of the medical practitioners managed to record patient’s data successfully. However, those who failed claimed that they encountered problems such as recording wrong patient’s information and were not able to edit as they were not very familiar with the EHR system (Bloom and Huntington, 2010, p.562). Regarding performance, 80% of the system users recorded patients’ data in less than 5 minutes. In addition, system users were able to retrieve patient’s data with a lot of ease. In most cases, patients are treated basing on the previous diagnosis. They were able to view previous medication that were provided to patients. Moreover, they also accessed various illness that the patient had undergone. Furthermore, they also established connections with other units within the hospital in order to access patient’s data (Fritz et al., 2012, p.311). They also obtained specific laboratory tests results as requested by patients. However, some system users encountered challenges while retrieving patient’s data. Some of the challenges includes failure to obtain specific information that they have requested from other units such as laboratory test. This was caused by failure to provide exact name of specific laboratory tests, hence resulting in search problems. Also, other system users established connections with wrong responders, hence unable to obtain the information that they required. Besides, some of the system users failed to understand required guidelines that were supposed to be followed while requesting patient’s data. Therefore, violating certain design principles (Janols et al., 2014, p.440). Regarding performance, more than 70% of the system users accessed patient’s records very fast as compared to manual methods. Furthermore, medical practitioners also updated patient’s information. The unique identification key was used to identify patient’s records. Hence, they kept track of patient’s records and
System Design10 updating it when necessary in case the patient has developed additional problems. Other than patient’s ID, biometric was also used to access patient’s data so that it can be updated. The system users entered specific dates and time that patient’s records were updated (Viitanen et al., 2011, p.710). This enabled other medical specialists to monitor patient’s health status basing on the stages of illness development. Regarding performance, 50% of the medical specialists updated patient’s records successfully. This is because most of them forgot to click update button, thus patient’s information remained the same. Other than updating patient’s records, most of the medical specialists also managed to share patient’s information with others from different units. However, some of them violated design guidelines by allowing access to patient’s records without following proper authentication procedure (Kjeldskov, Skov and Stage, 2010, p.137). The RC established connections successfully with responder’s system. Subsequently, the responder allowed access to patient’s information after receiving signed authorization form from RC. Regarding performance, most of the validation processes took less than 10 minutes. Hence, enhancing productivity as compared to manual sharing methods than can take more than 30 minutes. Last but not least, medical specialists were able to switch between different pages successfully. They achieved this by closing irrelevant pages and opening new ones. They clicked exit and logout button in order to log onto another patient’s account. However, some of the system users encountered problems while switching between different patient’s accounts. This is because they failed to log out from patient’s account, hence updating patient’s information on the wrong account (Waneka and Spetz, 2010, p.513). This was evidenced as some of the patients complained that some of their records were incorrect. However, some of the patients assisted medical specialists to login onto their respective accounts when they realized that wrong account
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System Design11 was being updated. The system users asked patient’s questions regarding their sickness following previous diagnosis on his/her account. Hence, patients realized easily that there was some issues with their accounts or medical specialists didn’t logged out from previous patient’s account. Regarding questions asked, 80% of the system users said that they were able to switch between different accounts swiftly by following design guidelines that required users to log out from patient’s account before logging onto another patient’s account (Waneka and Spetz, 2010, p.513). Part SIX: The findings of the evaluation In conclusion, the results of the EHR system evaluation are linked to the evaluation procedure in different ways. First and foremost, the results have shown that defined goals in evaluation methodology were achieved. For example, the EHR system improved co-ordination between medical specialists from various units (Embi and Leonard, 2012, p.147). This has been enhanced by central database, hence medical practitioners can access latest information regarding health status of their patients. Improved coordination has also been enhanced by automation of activities that are carried out by different medical practitioners. Other than improved co- ordination, quality of patient’s information has also been improved. Information quality is characterized by timeliness, reliability and accessibility. For instance, EHR systems provide patient’s information on a real-time basis. These information is accessed easily by the system users (Embi and Leonard, 2012, p.147). Regarding reliability, the responder validates credentials of the RC to ensure that the information is coming from the reliable source. Other than goals, there is also a link between findings and tasks that should be performed by medical practitioners. For instance, they managed to register and login successfully. Apart from login, they were also able to access and update patients’ health records.
System Design12 However, the usability problems that were identified could halt patient’s treatment process. The following are some of them: Updating patient’s information wrongly. This problem is caused by failure of system users to switch between different patients’ accounts properly. This is one of the major usability problems as it can lead to wrong diagnosis. Subsequently, wrong diagnosis can lead to additional complications, hence deteriorating patient’s health (Lowry et al., 2012, p.85). EHR system unfamiliarity. Regarding evaluation results, there are some cases in which system users took long time to carry out operations such as accessing patients’ records. This can lead to more suffering on patients’ side as they couldn’t be able to receive treatment on time (Lowry et al., 2012, p.85). The strengths of evaluation process include the following: Both experienced and inexperienced users were involved in the EHR system evaluation, thus enhancing accuracy of the results (Stephenson et al., 2014, p.224). The evaluation process involved some patients who were seriously and less seriously ill. The weaknesses of the EHR system evaluation process include the following: The evaluation process involved few medical specialists such as psychiatrists and surgeons. Others such as oncologists and pathologists did not take part in the evaluation process. The evaluation process involved 80% of the male participants as compared to 20% female, hence gender biasness was evident (McGinn et al., 2011, p.46). The successes of the EHR system evaluation process include the following:
System Design13 The evaluation process followed evaluation procedure steps ranging from selecting users to asking questions. All the desired outcomes that were stated in evaluation methodology were achieved. These outcomes include: EHR system improve co-ordination between medical specialists from various units. Medical specialists from different units were able to maintain communication flow, thus enhancing treatment process. More than 80% of the system users managed to carry out specified tasks successfully. For instance, they registered and accessed patient’s record successfully (Stephenson et al., 2014, p.224). The failures of the EHR system evaluation process include the following: The evaluation process has not described how the system users prioritized their tasks since some of them need to be carried out first without considering first come first serve scheduling mechanism (Ellsworth et al., 2016, p.219).
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System Design14 References Bhutkar, G., Konkani, A., Katre, D. and Ray, G.G. (2013). A review: healthcare usability evaluation methods.Biomedical instrumentation & technology[online].47(s2), pp.45-53. Available from:https://www.aami-bit.org/doi/full/10.2345/0899-8205-47.s2.45[Accessed 29 April 2019]. Bloom, M.V. and Huntington, M.K. (2010). Faculty, resident, and clinic staff's evaluation of the effects of EHR implementation.Family medicine,42(8), p.562. Bossen, C., Jensen, L.G. and Udsen, F.W. (2013). Evaluation of a comprehensive EHR based on the DeLone and McLean model for IS success: approach, results, and success factors.International journal of medical informatics,82(10), pp.940-953. Broy, M. and Stølen, K. (2012).Specification and development of interactive systems: focus on streams, interfaces, and refinement. Springer Science & Business Media. Available from: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387950730[Accessed 29 April 2019]. Chen, Y.Y., Lu, J.C. and Jan, J.K. (2012). A secure EHR system based on hybrid clouds.Journal of medical systems[online].36(5), pp.3375-3384. Available from: https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/22351166[Accessed 29 April 2019]. Ellsworth, M.A., Dziadzko, M., O’Horo, J.C., Farrell, A.M., Zhang, J. and Herasevich, V. (2016). An appraisal of published usability evaluations of electronic health records via systematic review.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association,24(1), pp.218-226.
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System Design17 McAlearney, A.S., Robbins, J., Kowalczyk, N., Chisolm, D.J. and Song, P.H. (2012). The role of cognitive and learning theories in supporting successful EHR system implementation training: a qualitative study.Medical Care Research and Review,69(3), pp.294-315. McGinn, C.A., Grenier, S., Duplantie, J., Shaw, N., Sicotte, C., Mathieu, L., Leduc, Y., Légaré, F. and Gagnon, M.P. (2011). Comparison of user groups' perspectives of barriers and facilitators to implementing electronic health records: a systematic review.BMC medicine,9(1), p.46. Middleton, B., Bloomrosen, M., Dente, M.A., Hashmat, B., Koppel, R., Overhage, J.M., Payne, T.H., Rosenbloom, S.T., Weaver, C. and Zhang, J. (2013). Enhancing patient safety and quality of care by improving the usability of electronic health record systems: recommendations from AMIA.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association,20(e1), pp.e2-e8. Narayan, S., Gagné, M. and Safavi-Naini, R. (2010, October). Privacy preserving EHR system using attribute-based infrastructure. InProceedings of the 2010 Association for Computing Machinery workshop on Cloud computing security workshop(pp. 47-52). Association for Computing Machinery. Nguyen, L., Bellucci, E. and Nguyen, L.T. (2014). Electronic health records implementation: an evaluation of information system impact and contingency factors.International journal of medical informatics,83(11), pp.779-796. Ratwani, R.M., Fairbanks, R.J., Hettinger, A.Z. and Benda, N.C. (2015). Electronic health record usability: analysis of the user-centered design processes of eleven electronic health record vendors.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association,22(6), pp.1179-1182. Saitwal, H., Feng, X., Walji, M., Patel, V. and Zhang, J. (2010). Assessing performance of an electronic health record (EHR) using cognitive task analysis.International Journal of Medical
System Design18 Informatics[online],79(7), pp.501-506. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20452274[Accessed 29 April 2019]. Schumacher, R.M. and Lowry, S.Z. (2010). NIST guide to the processes approach for improving the usability of electronic health records.National Institute of Standards and Technology. Available from:https://www.nist.gov/publications/nistir-7741-nist-guide-processes-approach- improving-usability-electronic-health-records[Accessed 29 April 2019]. Stephenson, L.S., Gorsuch, A., Hersh, W.R., Mohan, V. and Gold, J.A. (2014). Participation in EHR based simulation improves recognition of patient safety issues.BMC medical education [Online].14(1), p.224. Available from:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25336294 [Accessed 29 April 2019]. Sun, J., Zhu, X., Zhang, C. and Fang, Y. (2011, June). HCPP: Cryptography based secure EHR system for patient privacy and emergency healthcare. In2011 31st International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems(pp. 373-382). IEEE. Available from: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/HCPP%3A-Cryptography-Based-Secure-EHR-System- for-and-Sun-Zhu/613b4c81c8bfa52dfe99f0a944128746522e020f[Accessed 29 April 2019]. Viitanen, J. and Nieminen, M. (2011, November). Usability evaluation of digital dictation procedure-an interaction analysis approach. InSymposium of the Austrian HCI and Usability Engineering Group(pp. 133-149). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Viitanen, J., Hyppönen, H., Lääveri, T., Vänskä, J., Reponen, J. and Winblad, I. (2011). National questionnaire study on clinical ICT systems proofs: physicians suffer from poor usability.International journal of medical informatics,80(10), pp.708-725.
System Design19 Waneka, R. and Spetz, J. (2010). Hospital information technology systems' impact on nurses and nursing care.Journal of Nursing Administration[Online].40(12), pp.509-514. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21084885[Accessed 29 April 2019].