Introduction to Microsoft Health CUI

To date, there has been no standardization for the display of important information elements, such as patient identification information and dates, in clinical applications. As healthcare becomes more reliant on electronic systems, there is a need to standardize display elements so that healthcare professionals can switch between different applications and rapidly identify the information they need, thereby increasing clinical effectiveness and improving patient safety.

The following areas provide background information about Microsoft Health CUI.

What is Microsoft Health CUI?

To understand the reasoning behind Microsoft Health CUI, consideration needs to be given to clinical applications that are used within a healthcare setting, such as a doctor's practice, ambulance, hospital, or in the community.

Healthcare professionals utilize a variety of clinical applications developed by different application providers, who have their own approach to user interface design. This results in an inherent level of inconsistency between user interfaces that has the potential for risk to the patient.

To take a simple example, consider how a patient's name and date of birth could be displayed differently in three clinical applications. A healthcare professional might have difficulty identifying the same patient in each of these applications, and this could result in them administering the wrong care to that patient.

This is where Microsoft Health CUI can help by promoting a Common User Interface (CUI) for clinical applications. Healthcare application developers can utilize two resources from Microsoft Health CUI that support them in developing safer, more consistent user interfaces.

Firstly, Microsoft Health CUI Design Guidance provides a comprehensive set of user interface guidelines and recommendations. These can be used to evaluate the clinical safety of existing software applications, as well as aid in the design of future clinical applications, with the intention to increase clinical effectiveness and improve patient safety.

Secondly, the Microsoft Health CUI Toolkit provides ready-made user interface controls that fully adopt the Design Guidance in a number of Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

These controls can be customized and used within existing or new clinical applications.

Microsoft Health CUI provides Design Guidance and Toolkit controls for many common clinical task-based scenarios, such as displaying patient personal data and allergies.

Patient Safety Principles

Patient safety is a top priority within the global healthcare industry and is paramount to all design and development of Microsoft Health CUI Design Guidance and Toolkit controls. This is assured through the use of a set of Patient Safety Principles, which are also of importance to organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA).

Healthcare Professionals

Clinical Business Decision Makers

I am responsible for analyzing the business requirements of our establishment, ensuring that the healthcare information technology we use supports our key patient safety goals

Key issues:

• Unable to identify requirements that will change how end-users perform their core tasks in order to meet patient safety requirements and promote clinical empowerment
• Making an inaccurate analysis of patient safety requirements
• Not including all relevant information needed to ensure that patient safety requirements are met during the design and development of the healthcare applications

How Microsoft Health CUI can help:

A rigorous, user-centered and iterative design, development process, which incorporates regular reviews and feedback from a wide range of clinical and I.T. professionals, is used to create the Design Guidance and Toolkit controls. This ensures they conform to Best Practice, and their validity in meeting patient safety requirements.

Healthcare Workers

I use clinical applications in a healthcare environment every day, and depend on them for safely and accurately recording our patient's details, diagnosis, and medications

Key issues:

• Making decisions regarding a patient's care without having access to all of their data
• Making errors whilst entering patient information due to the complexity of the user interface
• Insufficient training for each clinical application to use it efficiently

How Microsoft Health CUI can help:

A clear, consistent and simple interface enables healthcare workers to perform their jobs more efficiently by being able to find, view and enter patient information in a predictable and easily recognizable manner. This also aids in the reduction of their cognitive load and the need for specialist training.

Healthcare Software Providers

Business Decision Makers

I am responsible for defining the features for our new and current healthcare products, including the capturing, and prioritizing of, customer requirements

Key issues:

• Inability to prioritize the development of features that will provide the most benefits to the healthcare industry

How Microsoft Health CUI can help:

Through extensive research, the Microsoft Health CUI Design Guidance and Toolkit controls, which have been selected for publication, have been identified as those that have the highest benefit for increasing patient safety and clinical performance within the healthcare industry.

For further details, visit http://www.mscui.net