Newly-Designed EHR Notes May Improve Usability

Showing less data in physician EHR notes may produce more benefits for physician productivity, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM).

The study by Jeffery Beldon, MD et al. compared different physician EHR note designs to see which design physicians found most efficient, accurate, and usable when attempting to obtain information for ambulatory chronic disease care.

Researchers devised four physician note designs and tested the designs on 16 primary care physicians in random order. Physicians were instructed to find key information in the EHR notes during timed tasks.

Physicians then gave each note design a usability rating and new feature preference rating. Additionally, researchers conducted interviews with physicians to gain insight into the physicans’ experiences using each note design.

“Cluttered documentation may contribute adversely to physician readers’ cognitive load, inadvertently obscuring high-value information with less valuable information,” researchers wrote in the report.

In an effort to reduce clutter and enable physicians to quickly find the most relevant and significant clinical information, physicians designed a collapsible note that displayed assessment, plan, subjective, and objective (APSO) information to physicians. Researchers provided clinicians with three variations on the new APSO prototype. This new design contrasted the traditional subjective, objective, assessment, and plan (SOAP) EHR note…

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View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P