Usability in Health IT: Strategy, Research, and Implementation
NIST/AHRQ/ONC Workshop July 13, 2010
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD

This follows in pattern of previous workshops conducted by ONC, eg., Workforce Initiative, when ONC is in early brainstorning stages of developing a systematic program to meet particular needs.

The remainder of this post is excerpted from NIST site.

Purpose:
To promote collaboration in health IT usability among Federal agencies, industry, academia, and others.

Goal: Bring together industry, academia, government, and others to prioritize, align and coordinate short, medium, and long term strategies and tactics to improve the usability of EHRs. 

Objectives:

• Establish an immediate term set of actions to inform the national initiative to drive EHR adoption and meaningful use.
• Develop a strategic approach to measure and assess use of EHRs, and impact of usability on their adoption and innovation.
• Develop strategies to drive best practices and innovation to vendor products.
• Inspire follow-on activities in the public and private sectors.

NIST ”will be updating workshop information. Please check the website again soon.”
Contains pdf of Prelimimary Agenda (in html below), Roundtable Discussion Participants, and Acronyms.

Agenda
8:00 – 9:00 Registration / Coffee
9:00 – 9:30 Greetings / Introduction / Opening Remarks – (ONC)
Moderator – Janice (Ginny) Redish, PhD
9:30 – 10:30 Current State and Need for Action
–HITECH (ONC)
–Current State of EHRs (AHRQ)
–Current Federal and Private EHR Usability Initiatives Government (ONC, NIST, AHRQ, FDA); Private (HIMSS, EHRA, Miscrosoft); Academia
–Meaningful use (AHRQ, FDA, Academia) – Standard Formats, PSO program, etc.
–Adoption (ONC, HIMSS, EHRA, Industry)
–Innovation (Industry, Academia)
–Q&A
10:30 – 10:45 Coffee Break
10:45 – 11:45 “Points of Pain” – Prevention of Cognitive Overload
–Current research (Academia
–Prevention of Cognitive Overhead During Initial Adoption / Transition from Paper
–Prevention of Cognitive Overhead During Transition from systems in multiple settings (One User / Many Systems Issue)
–Insufficient System Feedback (Critical Issue on Alert Overload)
–Dense Displays of Data (Prevention of Excessive Complexity of System)
–Q&A
11:45 – 1:00 Lunch (NIST Cafeteria)
1:00 – 1:30 “Points of Pain” – Addressing EHR User Disparities
–Clinical Workforce characteristics and limitations (NIST, Access Board, Academia)
–Accessibility Issues – Low/Poor Vision; Mobility/Dexterity; Cognitive Disabilities
–English Proficiency
–Lower socioeconomic demographics – digital divide
–Q&A
1:30 – 1:45 Coffee Break
1:45 – 2:45 Usability Framework (NIST, AHRQ, Academia)
–Best practices and gaps based on experience from other industries / sectors
–Usability Standards Development (NIST)
–Measurement domains
–Objective measures of human performance
–Effectiveness
–Efficiency
–Additional measures
–User satisfaction
–User acceptance
–Ongoing Projects and Research Initiatives (AHRQ Toolkit, SHARP, NIST grants, Common Formats, etc.
–Usability framework for product lifecycle
–Q&A
2:45 – 3:00 Coffee Break
3:00 – 4:00 Recommendations to support HITECH / Certification
–Accreditation Program, Certification
–Test Methods for Products and Users (Pass / Fail Criteria for Usability Standards)
4:00 – 4:45 Recommendations and Next Steps
Moderator: Janice (Ginny) Redish, PhD
–Research and Implementation
–Recommendations for Usability and Adoption
–Recommendations for Innovation
–Next steps