EMR Reimagined

Electronic medical record (EMR) designs should be intuitive on both ends of care.

UI/UX

Product Design

Role

Visual Design

Duration

1 week

Tools

Overview

An electronic medical record (EMR) system is essentially a digital archive of patient healthcare charts, mainly used within a particular medical practice. As someone who works closely with patients, doctors and an EMR software everyday, I wanted to try tackling some of the issues.

For this project, I reimagined a an EMR interface for a telemedicine visit between a physician and their patient.

Jump to EMR Solution

The Context

Healthcare systems are extremely complex and information-heavy due to the sheer amount of information and patient data users (i.e., healthcare providers) need to access.

An effective EMR design should ultimately streamline workflows, reduce medical errors, improve patient safety and enhance healthcare delivery.

Industry Example

Epic Systems Corporation is the #1 largest EHR/EMR vendor in the world (2024).

EMR System

As a designer, you may immediately flag the cluttered UI or the lack of information architecture and visual hierarchy.

But as a user, you may appreciate how all of the information you may need is visible and accessible on a single page.

A simplistic but densely-populated UI may be preferred in this context if it's efficient.

Patient Portal

Patients will typically spend only a few minutes on a patient portal. Regardless of technical literacy/proficiency, patients should be able to easily view and interact with information relevant to them.

The patient portal is less information-heavy and more task-based, so it makes sense for it to have a more clean and spacious aesthetic.

Design for the Scenario

Design a solution that uses digital technologies to connect patients with healthcare providers for virtual consultations.
Patient

Steven Lewis

  • 65-year-old male

  • Diagnosed with hypertension/high BP

  • Daily BP readings are synced with EMR software on his phone

  • Fairly comfortable with consumer tech, but not an expert

  • Regularly uses video call services to talk with friends and family

Healthcare Provider

Barbara Winston, M.D.

  • Primary Care Provider (PCP), specializing in internal medicine

  • Regularly treats patients for hypertension and is familiar with different treatment options

  • 10+ years EMR experience, only recently started doing telemed

  • Likes to unplug after using computers all the time for work

Steven experiences symptoms of his new hypertension medication and expresses his concerns to Dr. Winston. They schedule a virtual appointment for the next day, after which Dr. Winston decides to lower the dosage.

Dr. Winston prescribed 50 mg of Atenolol for Steven's hypertension. After 2 weeks of taking the medication, Steven notices he has been having difficulty sleeping, daytime tiredness, and shortness of breath with light exercise. Worried about side-effects, Steven sends Dr. Winston a message on his mobile healthcare app. Dr. Winston schedules a virtual appointment for the next day to discuss the problem together.

The day of the appointment, Steven loads up his healthcare app on his iPad and meets with Dr. Winston who is using the EMR on her PC. After talking to Steven, reviewing his current meds, medical conditions and data from his BP cuff (BP is going down), Dr. Winston decides to lower his dose from 50 mg to 25 mg.

Jobs to be done

Patient

When I have a virtual visit with my doctor, I want access to standard video conferencing functionality, so I can see my doctor’s video and any information they want to show me, as well as take notes and set myself reminders of any adjustments to my treatment during my visit.

Provider

When I am with a patient via telemedicine, I want to be able to see the patient’s video, view their medical chart, make the appropriate adjustments, and send a visit summary to my patient, so I can provide the best possible care.

Design Ideas

I took a lot of inspiration from athenaOne, as I am familiar with it and personally like its UI for the most part. Upon watching a couple of demos for other EMR systems, I got a better idea of what elements I did or did not want to incorporate.

  • Side-by-side panels for easy information-viewing

  • Static to dynamic information architecture

  • Minimize scrolling, new windows/pop-ups and clicks

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Syle Guide

EMR UI should be easy to read, have a good information hierarchy, and a neutral color palette that does not distract attention away from its content.

Solution(s)

Patients can access their personal health records, communicate virtually with their providers, manage their appointments, and review visit summaries/notes.

Chart functionality should not be forgone: Physician can interact with the patient chart as normal while on the video call.

No new pop-up windows. Just click and edit in place.

How I Would Test

If I were to test this solution, I would first make a clickable prototype and recruit both types of users (patients and physicians) to test each respective user flow.

I would take note of the following success metrics:

  1. Points of confusion

  2. Time it takes to complete task(s)

  3. Number of clicks or misclicks