Potential impact of data source and interoperability messaging on health information technology (HIT) users: a study series from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs

• Main Authors: Jennifer Herout, Donna Baggetta, Amanda Cournoyer, Aaron S Dietz, Jane Robbins, Kyle Maddox, Jolie Dobre
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMJ Publishing Group 2019-05-01
• Series: BMJ Health & Care Informatics
• Online Access: https://informatics.bmj.com/content/26/1/e000014.full

BackgroundThe promise of Health Information Exchange (HIE) systems rests in their potential to provide clinicians and administrative staff rapid access to relevant patient data to support judgement and decision-making. However, HIE systems can have usability and technical issues, as well as fail to support user workflow.ObjectiveShare the findings from a series of studies that address HIE system deficiencies for an Electronic Health Record (EHR) viewer which accesses multiple data sources.MethodsA variety of methods were used, in a series of studies, to gain a better understanding of issues and their mitigation through use of promising EHR viewer features.ResultsThe study series results are presented by the themes that underscore the importance for users to distinguish between data that are available but missing due to connection or system errors, data that are omitted entirely because they are not available and data that are excluded due to filtered search criteria.ConclusionsThe principal findings from this study series led to improvement recommendations for the EHR viewer, as well as citing areas that are ripe for further investigation and analysis.