Design Challenge with Epic System
DESIGN PROCESS
Questions I had before starting the design process
- What is the source of the family history data? Is it from the patient’s mouth? or Does the hospital have their data?
- What does it mean by data validation?
- What kind of data should be validated?
- What is required to validate the data?
Hypothesis
Thereshouldbetwodistinctdesignsystems, one for nurses and one for doctors.
Research/ Resources
Unfamiliar with the hospital data entry system, I had to look for sources of information within my best reach. Because most of my initial curiosity was under data validation and data entry process during discussion or conversation between the nurse and the patient, I have talked to some individuals who may have professional knowledge about such circumstances separately from online research.
Over the last few days, I spent about three hours to talk to a doctor, a nurse, and two pharmacists.
● Doctor
● Nurse
● Pharmacystudentswithsomeworkingexperience
Research Findings
- Even though their job functions are different, according to my interviewee, nurses and doctors use the same patient data entry system to better communicate and maintain consistency.
- It is mostly not possible to validate patient information such as medication, previous surgery details, or vaccination date unless all these took place in the same hospital.
- During the information gathering process, nurses assume that the patient’s words are true and for his/her good and therefore somewhat validated unless a patient brings in the printed version of validated medical records of his/her own, which is not a usual case. When there is missing information that is required, it will take time to validate the necessary information by contacting the insurance company or previous hospital/ pharmacy.
- In the nurse’s perspective, invalid data mean unrealistic or missing values in the patient data.
Wireframe
I focused on designing a faster way to review patient data. I wanted to make the nurse and the doctor to have thorough access to as much information as possible.
Prototype
Patient medical history screen: BEFORE Data Entry (data entry for Nurse Ned)
By creating a two-column view to access patient data, I made data quickly editable, accessible and readable. Because data documentation while in discussion with a patient often requires to go back and forth depending on the patient’s memorization. Instead of a long scrollable page, I designed it to be quickly reviewable and editable.
Patient medical history screen: AFTER Data Entry
Faster and more precise data entry
The image on the right shows an example of data entry for the current medical condition. By auto-find medical conditions based on matching letters, I intended to help decrease the chances of making mistakes on its names as well as to save more time to find the exact condition that is already shared in the system database. Also by right-clicking within the input box will give a user to either “Delete” or “Reset” a row.
Invalid data representation
As shown on the left, there will be an alert to show invalid data. Examples of invalid data could be an unrealistic date, values, or missing information that is required.
Physician screen of patient’s medical history for review
This is the screen that the physician will use to review the patient’s data before beginning her examination. As you may have noticed, the physician’s screen is different from Nurse Ned’s data entry screen. There are no columns to divide data inputs or checkbox options to navigate the patient’s information. This design decision was made to fulfill the physician’s core purpose of the task. Because she wants to quickly review and access patterns in the patient’s history.
