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Federal agency launches EHR usability testing

Posted April 9, 2012

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology has started a formal procedure for electronic health record vendors to evaluate the usability of their systems.

The procedure will help developers objectively assess how easy their EHR systems are to learn and operate. It is a three-step process that consists of an analysis of how the application functions, an expert review, and validation testing of the user interface to ensure it works as intended.

The institute says its evaluation of interface is done from a clinical perspective that looks at whether the EHR contains, collects and displays the information it needs to. The interface evaluation also will examine a human factors perspective: Can the user understand it and easily find information?

The testing is voluntary, but the institute says the guidance can be a useful tool for EHR developers “to demonstrate their systems do not lead to errors or user errors.”

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/04/09/bibf0409.htm.

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