Extreme Usability With an EDIS and Why it Matters
Bringing new technology into your ED should help free up clinicians to focus on what they do best – provide excellent emergency care to patients. And while every new system involves training, easy to use systems flatten users’ learning curve and more quickly deliver results for patients and the hospital.
This approach to technology may seem obvious, but ED clinicians know that most software developers define “usability” very differently than caregivers do. In the past, many cumbersome technologies failed because clinicians refused to adopt the system saying, “It’s just not worth it.”
It’s important that ED technology vendors have a commitment to usability. While touch screen technology and the use of graphics instead of text makes software even more usable, an ED system is truly powerful only if it can be customized to meet each hospital’s unique and frequently changing needs. Although one could argue that most ED care is essentially the same, the workflows, policy and procedures, interpretation of regulatory guidelines and subtle nuances of varying patient populations as well as extreme needs when disaster situations demand on the fly changes.
That’s where an administration utility can enable you to make onsite customizations within seconds and without downtime. For example, a California hospital recently used this kind of system flexibility so that victims of a train collision could be easily identified by assigning a special handling color code to their record. This allowed clinicians to temporarily handle this subset of patients differently, yet they were able to remove the flag when the situation had passed – making the system stay in tune with the needs of the ED.
Speaking of real world experiences . . . if you’re attending ACEP we hope you will stop by booth #363 to see our unique EDIS and hear our physician Customers speak about their experiences. Presentations are at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. each day of the conference and topics include:
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When disaster strikes: The importance of usability within your EDIS when it really matters
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The real benefits of EDIS implementation and how to achieve them
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How your EDIS can impact your success in practice
Patricia Daiker, RN, BC
Vice President of Marketing