>From my perspective with an EMR in the outpatient area of an academic medical center, I find GUI's underutilized for organizing information visually (which they should be used for) and overutilized for driving input using the mouse (which they are abominable for). If designers could get in their heads around how physicians use the interface they would let us look at the big picture with the GUI and get to a flexible menu driven character cell environment when it is time to enter data. (Note: I am using a proprietary EMR, so I know ... if it was open source, I could fix it myself!) Also all mouse actions should be completely duplicable with hot key equivalents so that when people get facile with the interface they can enter data without looking to see where the mouse is, moving a few pixels, clicking the mouse button and then moving back to typing. I like the concept of palliative computing, in that, we are not trying to cure physicians of computer illiteracy, rather deliver comfort care - or comfortable computing tools. It is just that you will never help 2 finger typists with a GUI. There is just too much that must be communicated in free text.
I don't see the hybrid GUI/character cell as a limitation. I agree physicians will be comfortable with what they are first presented. Sometimes the novices can be an easy sell for a poor interface, if it delivers what they need. Give me a novice over a programmer-MD who can see bad interface from across the room (at least in the proprietary world where there is no hope of fixing it). I agree about the "macros triggered by buttons in the GUI frame" - a nice synthesis. As long as someone actually designed and tested the interface with efficient physician workflow in mind, we will likely get a useable interface. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harold Mackey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2003 10:28 AM Subject: Re: VistA demo discussions on openhealth list > Definitely not my experience here. I work at a teaching hospital and these > guys are under the gun. They are suffering from information overload and are <end clip> > >From: Adrian Midgley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >CC: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Subject: Re: VistA demo discussions on openhealth list > >Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 12:20:43 +0000 > >
