The clinician in the Driver's Seat: part 1 - a drag/drop user-composable electronic health record platform

Creating electronic health records that support the uniquely complex and varied needs of healthcare presents formidable challenges. To address some of these challenges we created a new model for healthcare information systems, embodied in MedWISE,(2) a widget-based highly configurable electronic health record (EHR) platform. Founded on the idea that providing clinician users with greater control of the EHR may result in greater fit to user needs and preferences, MedWISE allows drag/drop user configurations and the sharing of user-created elements such as custom laboratory result panels and user-created interface tabs. After reviewing the current state of EHR configurability, we describe the philosophical, theoretical and practical rationales for our model, and the specific functionality of MedWISE. The alternative approach may have several advantages for human-computer interaction, efficiency, cognition, and fit of EHR tools to different contexts and tasks. We discuss potential issues raised by this approach.