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Help your staff members use EHRs: keep architecture in mind

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, July 12, 2007

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It might not have crossed your mind that your hospital's physical architecture has an effect on how staff members use electronic health records (EHRs), but your EHR efforts can benefit immensely by taking into account your hospital's structural design. Although you have to work within the confines of your current building, consult with architects anytime your facility undergoes construction to ensure that the new design accommodates EHR needs. In doing so, you should ask your supervisor or the architect running the project how much input you'll have.

It's important to consider user needs when giving architects guidance about planning additional construction in your building. The easier you make using an EHR, the more likely it is that clinicians will adopt the new technology. One item to consider is the source of the data itself. Data entry devices should be easy to find and use. The following types of hardware improve accessibility:

• Workstations on wheels (WOWs)
• Stationary/fixed computers
• Handheld devices, (e.g., BlackBerrys)
• Wall-mounted flat screens

To get more information, go to Electronic Health Records Briefing (EHRB). For the cost of just three stories, you can get the entire July issue of EHRB. Click here to choose between the PDF and HTML versions for just $30. Subscribers to the online version of EHRB have free access to this article. Subscribers to the print newsletter can find this article in their July issue.

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