Healthcare’s EHR Usability Problem: How New Efforts Are Addressing the Issue—and Potentially Sa…

Raj Ratwani, Ph.D., director of MedStar Health’s National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, has long been committed to the usability and safety of healthcare technology, such as electronic health records (EHRs). Having taken the lead on multiple studies that have examined the association between EHR usability and patient safety, Ratwani recently took his efforts up a level, spearheading a new campaign that aims to push for changes to address the known risks to patient safety and clinician burnout that stem from poor EHR usability.

The initiative from MedStar, the largest provider organization in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, and the American Medical Association (AMA), was announced earlier this month and includes videos from the clinician’s point of view that demonstrate the risks and challenges caused by poor EHR usability. The videos have just been made available on a new website, EHRSeeWhatWeMean.org, which specifically calls out what multiple stakeholders—policymakers, healthcare providers, EHR vendors and patients—can do in the push to improve EHR usability and safety.