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The Improvement of the Electronic Health Record User Experience by Screen Design Principles

Journal of Medical Systems volume 44, Article number: 21 (2020) Cite this article

Abstract

The amount and complexity of data accumulated in electronic health record (EHR) is quite large, and the quantity of information that clinicians can examine and handle is very limited. Thus, it is necessary to enhance the accessibility of EHR by improving the user experience (UX). To apply information visualization that turns EHR data into an understandable visual format, we propose following five screen design principles when designing UX interfaces. #1: One view should contain single patient data. #2: Data should be summarized or titled for overview and details should be given on-demand. #3: Data should be displayed in time-series. #4: Data should be categorized by primary type. #5: More data should be displayed at the same time. Three screen designs are plausible utilizing the above-mentioned principles. To measure the UX of screen designs and validate the design principles, we built an EHR viewer system that has three windows corresponding to these screen designs and had it tested by medical staff. The results of the test revealed that the UX of the screen design is proportional to the number of design principles that the screen design incorporates. It shows that the proposed screen design principles improve the UX of EHR.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Mr. Tetsuo Tsuru, Ms. Tomoko Hikita, Dr. Akihiro Hamasaki, MD, Ph.D., Dr. Toyohiro Hirai, MD, Ph.D., Dr. Yumi Matsumura, MD, Ph.D. and Dr. Hideo Nakano, Ph.D. for their helpful discussions.

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Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Applied Informatics, University of Hyogo, 7-1-28 Minatojima-minamimachi, Chuo, Kobe, Hyogo, 650-0047, Japan

    Kenichiro Fujita & Tadamasa Takemura

  2. Osaka City University Media Center, 3-3-138 Sugimotocho, Sumiyoshi, Osaka, 558-8585, Japan

    Katsumi Onishi

  3. Kyoto University Hospital, 54 Kawaharacho, Shogoin, Sakyo, Kyoto, 606-8507, Japan

    Tomohiro Kuroda

Authors
  1. Kenichiro Fujita
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  2. Katsumi Onishi
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  3. Tadamasa Takemura
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  4. Tomohiro Kuroda
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Correspondence to Kenichiro Fujita.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. For this type of study, formal consent is not required.

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Fujita, K., Onishi, K., Takemura, T. et al. The Improvement of the Electronic Health Record User Experience by Screen Design Principles. J Med Syst 44, 21 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-019-1505-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-019-1505-0

Keywords

  • Electronic health record
  • User experience
  • Information visualization
  • Screen design