User interface considerations for collecting data at the point of care in the tablet PC computing environment.

Collecting clinical data directly from clinicians is a challenge. Many standard development environments designed to expedite the creation of user interfaces for electronic healthcare applications do not provide acceptable components for satisfying the requirements for collecting and displaying clinical data at the point of care on the tablet computer. Through an iterative design and testing approach using think-aloud sessions in the eye care setting, we were able to identify and resolve several user interface issues.

Overcoming obstacles to collecting narrative data from eye care professionals at the point-of-care.

Capturing the nuances of clinical observations in an electronic format has been a major challenge in implementing electronic health records. In a formative evaluation study using three different methodologies, we identified that the greatest obstacle to point-of-care data entry for eye care was supporting free text annotation of clinical observations. To overcome this obstacle, we developed an approach that captures an image of a free text entry and associates this image with related data elements in an encounter note.

Assessment of relative importance of tablet computer features in supporting direct electronic documentation of encounters by eye care professionals.

Extensive utilization of mobile devices at the point of care will depend on device acceptance by the providers. We conducted focus groups involving nine eye care professionals to evaluate and elucidate the most important features of a tablet Personal Computer (PC) for data entry at the point of care. Ease of use, and quality and size of display were considered to be the most critical features of such a mobile device by the majority of the participants.

Identifying and overcoming obstacles to point-of-care data collection for eye care professionals.

Supporting data entry by clinicians is considered one of the greatest challenges in implementing electronic health records. In this paper we describe a formative evaluation study using three different methodologies through which we identified obstacles to point-of-care data entry for eye care and then used the formative process to develop and test solutions to overcome these obstacles. The greatest obstacles were supporting free text annotation of clinical observations and accommodating the creation of detailed diagrams in multiple colors.