Search Results
Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Thursday, September 11th, 2014
I work at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. UPMC has prioritized IT, and compared with many other academic medical centers, the IT department is fairly well-funded and well-staffed. The central IT umbrella spreads wide, including 16 major hospitals and numerous other facilities. UPMC uses Cerner for an inpatient electronic medical record (EMR) (and for […]
Consistency
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
Neatness counts. Trying to find my way from the entrance of my 12 year old daughter’s bedroom to the bed to kiss her goodnight, especially if barefoot, is considerably more dangerous than most of the search and rescue and disaster operations I’ve been on. Navigating the screens of medical software often seems like walking in […]
Calendar
Monday, December 12th, 2011
This is not directly related to medical informatics, but it is a user-interaction topic, and has some lessons for the usability of medical software. First: Unlike many nerds, I like Microsoft Word. It’s a mature product and works well. It has many complications into which one may delve, and for those who want to delve, […]
Cognitive Friction
Friday, October 28th, 2011
The Whorf-Sapir hypothesis says that our language shapes how we think. It’s been moderately debunked in recent decades, but it’s likely true, at least in small part. And one of those small parts is when someone coins a new word that encapsulates a new idea. There has been a debate within philosophy since Plato’s time […]
“Wrong Patient”
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
Updates, December 2014, October 2016: short addenda at end. Speaking of “Bad Design Killing” a big part of the discussion at the ACEP Informatics Section meeting in San Francisco this month was about one particular usability problem with CPOE: entering orders on the wrong patient. I’ve done this myself – as far as I know […]
