Restyling Electronic Medical Records
Electronic medical records (EMR) can be extremely useful tools to help improve patient care and reduce costs — if designed and used properly. But unfortunately, good design is hard to come by in this market. The lack of Health IT data standards, privacy laws, and impenetrable health systems complicate an already challenging design process and usually lead to lackluster products. So, the White House sponsored a contest to restyle the Blue Button, a medical record that was first implemented by Department of Veteran Affairs as a text-only record.
For details, read How Restyling the Mundane Medical Record Could Improve Health Care by Joseph Flahery at WIRED. Some of the contest entries a shown below, but more detail of each can be found in the WIRED article.
Nightingale by Gravitytank
Gravitytank designed a visual record that helps people understand their bodies and empower them to better control their own health. (best overall design) |
Studio TACK
The solution from Studio TACK combines a chronological presentation of the patient’s history along with guidelines and instructions to help track symptoms and when to request help. |
Blue Button by Method
Method‘s approach to the problem focused on making EMR data universally accessible whether on a PC, tablet, or smartphone. |
Health Summary by HealthEd
A key feature of HealthEd‘s design is a circular widget that provides an overall health score along with color-coded symbols that provide an overview of the state of core body systems (e.g., heart, lungs, etc.), lifestyle factors and mental state. (1st place in Best Lab Summaries category) |
hGraph by Involution Studios
While most EMRs focus on an individual patient, hGraphcollects records for entire families. |
Stay Well by Teague
Teague‘s approach color codes lab results to show which levels are in a healthy range and associates doctors’ photos with prescriptions and procedures. |
My Health History
Andrew Conn‘s design highlights dates of past appointments in a calendar view, beautifully organizes complex information, provides a timeline view to show a chronology of care, and includes charts and graphs tracking biometrics. |
MedPop by PIIM
The approach taken by the Parsons Institute for Information Mapping(PIIM) is highly visual, incorporating icons, detailed illustrations of medications, and common visual metaphors like stoplights and gauges to help put complex medical into a more approachable format. |
mHealthTalk articles on EMR & PHR systems
- Medical Records in the Hands of Patients
- How Safe is your Personal Health Information?
- My Family Health Portrait, a tool from the Surgeon General
- Maintaining Personal Health Records
- Electronic Personal Health Records
- e-Patient Dave says, “Gimme My DaM Data!”
- At 5-year Anniversary, HIMSS Cenebrates Meaningful Use