The American Medical Association (AMA) has developed 8 priorities for EHR vendors to promote usability and support for patients. The AMA’s goal is to make EHR is an asset rather than a cost of doing business, or, in some cases, a problem.
- Enhance physicians’ ability to provide high quality patient care
- The EHR system should be assisting with the physician’s workflow and not creating more disturbances. It should be allowing the physician to be more focused on their patient rather than the computer.
- Support team-based care
- The system should be a support system for the whole team. It should help with staff productivity and be able to adapt to the team’s workflow by distributing work appropriately across the care team.
- Promote care coordination
- Patient records should be easily accessible when the patient is transitioning between care. The EHR system should be able to track referrals and consultations.
- Offer product modularity and configurability
- EHR system should be designed to adapt and adjust to the clinic/hospital’s workflow.
- Reduce cognitive workload
- The system should not be creating more work on the physicians but instead it should be giving precise and real-time data.
- Promote data liquidity
- Useable interoperability and exchange of data are a prerequisite to improve care.
- Facilitate digital and mobile patient engagement
- Patient portals are important so that it gives engages the patient and allows the to be useful sources of their own information.
- Expedite user input into product design and post-implementation feedback
- Implementing an EHR system should not be the last step. It should always be an ongoing support for product improvement. Vendors should offer resources to teach and educate physicians on challenges or new tools.
What are your thoughts on this list? Does the AMA have it right? Let us know what you think should be the “real” issues to be solved within the EHR market space. Management by committee seldom gets the perfect answer. Contribute to this discussion by adding your own thoughts on are these priorities listed correctly or would the AMA’s focus be better directed elsewhere. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.
This article was created by Stephanie Sok, Business Researcher, and Michael Williams, CEO, Global Healthcare IT, Inc. and the following base line articles: For more on each please click on the link.
Stephanie can be reached on ssok@globalhit.com.
