3 ms·
Could doctors use a gestural interface like this to write templated notes in an EMR on touch devices? Most of the notes that doctors write have repetitive stru
by pak 14y ago
Could doctors use a gestural interface like this to write templated notes in an EMR on touch devices? Most of the notes that doctors write have repetitive structures. Hence, EMRs like Epic have come up with features like Smart Text, which expand special phrases into large templated sentences with certain bits of data prepopulated and keywords that can be toggled between values (present/absent, etc.) with the keyboard.
But the key complaint with these EMRs is that you need to type to use them, which is awkward and breaks the flow of conversation with a patient. Eye contact is important during patient interviews. Therefore, most doctors use paper and type them into the EMR later (waste of time).
A lot of people (and companies like drchrono) think that the way forward is to use tablets like the iPad mini or the Galaxy Tab, which balance the intrusiveness of the computer form factor against the ability to enter data. A pain point of tablet EMRs is text entry--but like I said, a lot of notes that doctors write have predefined structures, like code.
I think there is potentially a lot of money in elegantly solving this UI problem with a new interface like Tiled Text.
- westoncb 14y agoThat is a great idea. I have figured that there must be a ton of little niche areas for working with structured text like that--just waiting to discover more of them.
- josephpmay 14y ago(Sorry this is so short/badly explained. I'm typing this from my phone) I've worked for an EHR company that has had a solution to this problem for at least a half decade. Basically, there's a specialized touch screen input interface that is customized to the specific text field the doctor is imputing ino. It works similarly to smart text, but is much quicker, as the doctor is just selecting an option on a touchscreen instead of having to begin by typing. It, of course, has programmed text sequences and can have custom values imputed. From what I know, it works really well in the field.