Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a harsh light on a critical deficiency in our health care system: our inability to access important information about patients’ values, goals, and preferences in the electronic health record (EHR). At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), we have integrated and systematized health-related values discussions led by oncology nurses for newly diagnosed cancer patients as part of routine comprehensive cancer care. Such conversations include not only the patient’s wishes for care at the end of life but also more holistic personal values, including sources of strength, concerns, hopes, and their definition of an acceptable quality of life. In addition, health care providers use a structured template to document their discussions of patient goals of care.
Objective
To provide ready access to key information about the patient as a person with individual values, goals, and preferences, we undertook the creation of the Patient Values Tab in our center’s EHR to display this information in a single, central location. Here, we describe the interprofessional, interdisciplinary, iterative process and user-centered design methodology that we applied to build this novel functionality as well as our initial implementation experience and plans for evaluation.
Methods
We first convened a working group of experts from multiple departments, including medical oncology, health informatics, information systems, nursing informatics, nursing education, and supportive care, and a user experience designer. We conducted in-depth, semistructured, audiorecorded interviews of over 100 key stakeholders. The working group sought consensus on the tab’s main content, homing in on high-priority areas identified by the stakeholders. The core content was mapped to various EHR data sources. We established a set of high-level design principles to guide our process. Our user experience designer then created wireframes of the tab design. The designer conducted usability testing with physicians, nurses, and other health professionals. Data validation testing was conducted.
Results
We have already deployed the Patient Values Tab to a pilot sample of users in the MSK Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology Service, including physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, and administrative staff. We have early evidence of the positive impact of this EHR innovation. Audit logs show increasing use. Many of the initial user comments have been enthusiastically positive, while others have provided constructive suggestions for additional tab refinements with respect to format and content.
Conclusions
It is our challenge and obligation to enrich the EHR with information about the patient as a person. Realization of this capability is a pressing public health need requiring the collaboration of technological experts with a broad range of clinical leaders, users, patients, and families to achieve solutions that are both principled and practical. Our new Patient Values Tab represents a step forward in this important direction.
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