It’s tempting to think of user experience and user-centered design in computer applications being something of a touchy-feely act. Cute tabs and call outs have their place in certain dashboards but real UX and UCD drills far deeper, drawing on science and data to build software systems that effectively guide and ease users along the elaborate tasks of enterprise applications.

Perhaps too often, however, technology vendors give insufficient attention to such considerations, especially in healthcare information technology. it needs to be corrected, said Terry Fairbanks, MD, director of the National Center for Human Factors Engineering in Healthcare, and Associate Director of the MedStar Institute for Innovation, MedStar Health.

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Fairbanks will talk about advances in this process during the session “UX in HIT: A History of How We Got To Where We Are Today,” at HIMSS16, which begins in late February in Las Vegas.

“It’s not just usability, but getting data and interpreting data for the end user as we develop the software,” Fairbanks said. “Good usability design considers the need of the users so it’s easy for them to use it and use it well.”

Fairbanks said HIT software vendors have been particularly slow at recognizing the need for intuitive, intelligent UX and UCD elements.

“Healthcare systems didn’t start that way,” he added.

They were often standalone systems built to solve specific problems.

Fairbanks' presentation will outline the current state of UX and UCD and show barriers and facilitators to UX and UCD across HIT stakeholder groups. The discussion will include governmental and regulatory constraints and their effects on UX innovation, as well as the benefits of improved UX.

Presenting and sometimes debating with Fairbanks will be Ross Teague, senior UX manager at EHR and practice management vendor Allscripts.

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Recently UX and UCD HIT design has made significant leaps forward with recognition, getting in step with the targets of EHR meaningful use and the many complex tasks clinicians face.

“If you’re working in an emergency room you’ll get interrupted frequently,” Fairbanks said. “You may be in the middle of writing something and something else happens. Now the application may be able to close fast and it will remind you later. So the EHR will help you track it.”

That’s just one example of what Fairbanks and Teague will discuss.

The session “UX in HIT: A History of How We Got To Where We Are Today,” is slated for March 1, 2016 from 8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. in Lando 4205 at the Sands Expo Convention Center.

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