What Can Human Factors Contribute to Improve Electronic Health Record Usability and Patient Safety?

Abstract

The panel brings together diverse perspectives to bear on one critical question: (1) How can human factors methods improve usability in order to protect patient safety with the use of electronic health records? Panelists represent the viewpoint of the government’s role in encouraging collaboration and use of best practices, best practices in electronic health record evaluations for hospitals and special considerations for pediatric populations, the role of workflow in protecting patient safety, applying cognitive task analysis and abstraction hierarchies to inform imaging system design, and the influence of health disparities on the use of consumer health products by patients.