Facebook-like EMR (Part II)

In my previous post, I published a simple mock-up to introduce the idea of an Electronic Medical Record looking like Facebook social network.

We initially saw how taking advantage of this website could help to contribute to a better tool for doctors, nurses, and patients.

In this second part of the exercise, we can see as well the hi-fi prototype where the visual design will allow us to make new musings.

Top Bar

Notifications will lead the activity of users under specific contexts. This space would be used in a similar way, so we would expect to see there:

• New patient admissions
• New results
• Prescription modifications
• The activity of other physicians on my patient’s profile
• Events notifications
• Automatic clinical alerts
• …

The search box will index patients, activities and tasks. This way, finding a patient grouped under a separate list or jumping to the functional module will be quick and simple.

Patient Banner

The patient banner is now taking up a considerable amount of space: Is it really needed? Well, If we follow the idea of having patients accessing to their own profiles, it would be nice to have this personalizable. This way, patients would create a human connection between them and their clinical staff. I think the balance between the clarity of a customizable banner and the used space makes this a valuable area.

The Thumbnail area will show the teaser of each content type (clinical domains). This way the patient banner won’t be only an area to ensure patient identification but to highlight a meaningful set of content related to the latest activity of the patient.

What about the ‘Like’ button?

What would 'Like’ mean in a clinical context? It might be pretty controversial to say 'Like’ under a patient diagnosis. However, there are other social actions which could provide helpful support to the care activity.

• Notify
• Comments
• Share

Notifications could be triggered automatically by events or due to a professional opinion. Notification doesn’t express an emotion, but an objective idea. It’s not a bad idea to have a mechanism to communicate subjective feelings but here we shouldn’t make an error by this Facebook 'positive-thinking’.

About the prototype

The opinions, ideas and suggestions shared in this article and in the 'Facebook-like EMR (Part I)’ one only represent me (Carmel Hassan).

This prototype has been made by adapting the icons of Jigsoar. The shown data is fake and the girl in the picture is me! I know I know…