For The Usability People, LLC the time for talk has long been over. Many of you already know that we have been on an active campaign--by giving talks at conferences, on social media, and with our many Healthcare clients--to improve the usability of Health IT. We don’t want more talk, we want to DO SOMETHING about this important healthcare issue. Usability in healthcare it can save lives.
Ralph Nadar's book Unsafe At Any Speed raised public awareness of some of the safety problems associated with the Chevrolet Corvair. Nadar’s book, however, was also an indictment of the auto industry as a whole and served as a lightning rod for legislation establishing what would eventually become the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).
These two industries, HealthIT and automobiles have quite a lot in common including that they are both highly regulated. These regulations exist because in both industries poor design can lead to safety issues and the possible death of their user’s.
User Experience Forum Improving User Experience: A Roadmap to Safer, More Effective Health IT
This forum will explore the HIT user experience (UX) and the impacts of UX on efficient quality care delivery. A diverse assembly of vendors, administrators, and clinicians will share their perspectives and prescriptions. The forum will conclude with an expert panel who will discuss future steps to increase the effective use of user-centered design (UCD) principles in HIT hardware, software, practices and processes across the continuum.
Patient engagement was a very hot topic at the recent HIMSS conference in Chicago. There was no shortage of exhibitors promoting their patient engagement tools and there were also several presentations that contained suggestions for better engaging patients. Some exhibitors that we spoke to were not aware of the proposed patient engagement rules (described below) and were very excited at the prospect of greater use of their tools.
It was a pleasure to work with you, as you and your team made this process a more pleasant experience for our team and the participants.
Karen Perry
I just want to tell you that I value people relations more than money. I remember how you were friendly and helpful not going against policies and contractual obligations at the same time, not using your power to make us feel stupid and small. It was a very rare and big experience for me. Really. I will always remember this.
Alex
The Usability People are all individuals that you can become friends with very easily. They have a lot of different interests and are a pleasure to work with. I was writing a PRD/MRD for a billing solution and worked with The Usability People in defining the user interface. They are receptive to ideas and are able to mold the user interface from an end-user's perspective. I really liked the idea of putting end-user photograph & short biography around the office to help understand the users
