Physician requirements for adoption of telehealth following the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

It took the advent of SARS-CoV-2, a "black swan event", to widely introduce telehealth, remote care, and virtual house calls. Prior to the epidemic (2019), the American Medical Association (AMA) conducted a routine study to compare physicians' adoption of emerging technologies to a similar survey in 2016. Most notable was a doubling in the adoption of telehealth/virtual technology to 28% and increases in the use of remote monitoring and management for improved care (13-22%). These results may now seem insignificant when compared to the unprecedented surge in telehealth visits because of SARS-CoV-2. Even as this surge levels off and begins to decline, many observers believe we will continue to see a persistent increase in the use of virtual visits compared to face-to-face care. The requirements for adoption communicated by physicians in both the 2016 and 2019 surveys are now more relevant than ever: Is remote care as effective as in-person care and how best to determine when to use these modalities? How do I safeguard my patients and my practice from liability and privacy concerns? How do I optimize using these technologies in my practice and, especially integration with my EHR and workflows to improve efficiency? And how will a mix of virtual and in-person visits affect practice revenue and sustainability? Consumers have also expressed concerns about payment for virtual visits as well as privacy and quality of care. If telehealth and remote care are here to stay, continuing to track their impact during the current public health emergency is critically important to address so that policymakers and insurers will take necessary steps to ensure that the "new normal" will reflect a health care delivery model that can provide comparable or improved results today and into the future.

A usability and safety analysis of electronic health records: a multi-center study.

To characterize the variability in usability and safety of EHRs from two vendors across four healthcare systems (2 Epic and 2 Cerner). Twelve to 15 emergency medicine physicians participated from each site and completed six clinical scenarios. Keystroke, mouse click, and video data were collected. From the six scenarios, two diagnostic imaging, laboratory, and medication tasks were analyzed. There was wide variability in task completion time, clicks, and error rates. For certain tasks, there were an average of a nine-fold difference in time and eight-fold difference in clicks. Error rates varied by task (X-ray 16.7% to 25%, MRI: 0 to 10%, Lactate: 0% to 14.3%, Tylenol: 0 to 30%; Taper: 16.7% to 50%). The variability in time, clicks, and error rates highlights the need for improved implementation optimization. EHR implementation, in addition to vendor design and development, is critical to usable and safe products.

A framework for evaluating electronic health record vendor user-centered design and usability testing processes.

OBJECTIVE: Currently, there are few resources for electronic health record (EHR) purchasers and end users to understand the usability processes employed by EHR vendors during product design and development. We developed a framework, based on human factors literature and industry standards, to systematically evaluate the user-centered design processes and usability testing methods used by EHR vendors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We reviewed current usability certification requirements and the human factors literature to develop a 15-point framework for evaluating EHR products. The framework is based on 3 dimensions: user-centered design process, summative testing methodology, and summative testing results. Two vendor usability reports were retrieved from the Office of the National Coordinator's Certified Health IT Product List and were evaluated using the framework. RESULTS: One vendor scored low on the framework (5 pts) while the other vendor scored high on the framework (15 pts). The 2 scored vendor reports demonstrate the framework's ability to discriminate between the variabilities in vendor processes and to determine which vendors are meeting best practices. DISCUSSION: The framework provides a method to more easily comprehend EHR vendors' usability processes and serves to highlight where EHR vendors may be falling short in terms of best practices. The framework provides a greater level of transparency for both purchasers and end users of EHRs. CONCLUSION: The framework highlights the need for clearer certification requirements and suggests that the authorized certification bodies that examine vendor usability reports may need to be provided with clearer guidance.

Comparing patients' and their physicians' assessments of pain.

Patients and their physicians were asked to estimate the pain from needle aspiration and/or injection of joints or soft tissue using the visual analogue scale. On a 10-point scale, the mean score for patients prior to and after the procedure was 4.76 +/- 2.97 and 4.01 +/- 3.51, respectively, and for physicians was 4.15 +/- 2.45 and 3.36 +/- 2.08. Analysis of correlations revealed that prior to the procedure patients could predict their 'true' pain (after the procedure assessment) better (r = 0.765) than physicians could predict patients' pain (r = 0.542). However, physicians significantly improved their estimates of patients' scores by observing the procedure. After the procedure correlation between physician and patient scores increased to 0.62 (P = 0.003). The overall pattern of results suggests that experienced patients may be somewhat better than their physicians in predicting the level of pain they experience with a procedure, but that physicians' estimates appear to be accurate enough to allow them to give useful information about the degree of discomfort that a patient will experience during an invasive procedure.