Involving Health Care Professionals in the Development of Electronic Health Records: Scoping Review

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• Electronic health records (EHRs) are vital for managing complex health information globally.
• Challenges arise from poor usability and workflow integration, leading to high cognitive load.
• User involvement in EHR development is increasingly recognized as essential for mitigating these issues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide an overview of existing user involvement methods in EHR development.
• To identify the contextual factors and needs associated with different involvement approaches.
• To support the planning and execution of future user involvement processes in EHR design.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive scoping review was conducted.
• Searches were performed across PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases.
• Included articles were analyzed for methods, participants, development design, and researcher competencies.

Main Results:

• Seventy articles were analyzed, revealing a wide array of user involvement methods.
• Physicians and nurses were the most common participants, often involved only once.
• Co-design approaches were unspecified in 63% of studies, and reporting on researcher competencies was often deficient.

Conclusions:

• The review underscores the diversity of healthcare professional involvement in EHR development.
• It highlights the need for standardized quality considerations alongside user input.
• Improved reporting on involvement methods and researcher expertise is necessary for future EHR development studies.