Developing an Electronic Incident Report Feature for Behavioral Health Users
The following project is a summary of the research methods, insights, and actions taken to develop an incident reporting feature in an electronic medical records system.
Background
Role
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​Chief Clinical Officer
Duties​
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Conduct research on user needs to for incident reporting feature in electronic medical records system
Collaborators
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Stakeholders
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Website developer
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Clinical Leadership team
The Challenge
The organization's strategic plan included clinical quality as an initiative to align with healthcare quality standards.
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Organization did not have any established user flows for incident reporting.
Organization did not know what insights to prioritize
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Project Goal
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Develop a feature in electronic medical records system for users to document and store incidents that occur on-site.
Secondary Research
I first conducted secondary research reviewing records of incident report templates and payor, legal, and ethical requirements for the field.
User Interviews
Conducted interviews with users representative of all possible user personas about clinical quality and web-based EMR.
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Participants
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Regional Clinical Director
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Administrative Staff
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Supervising Clinician
Contextual Inquiry
Conducted contextual inquiries with users representative of all possible user personas about incident reporting.
Participants
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Regional Clinical Director
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Administrative Staff
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Direct-Care Clinician
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Supervising Clinician
Beta Testing
Due to immediate necessity of feature, incident reporting feature was Beta tested.
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Beta version of feature was distributed to 10% of users.
Insights
Gathered key insights about Beta Version via usability testing.
Actionable Insights
Disseminated findings to development team and provided recommendations for actionable insights
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Create a save and exit button for users to return for signature from caregiver later.
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Create signature section for caregiver.
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Create user flow and capability for incidents that require caregiver contact.
User Flow
Created a user flow for incident reporting to alert users to obtain supervisor signature.
Conclusion
The methods used in this project resulted in the following changes to the incident reporting feature:
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100% User engagement for incident reporting feature that documented and stored incidents across the entire organization
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Iterations that included the following:
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Sign and save feature​
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Signature section for caregivers
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User flow to include alert to contact a caregiver based on incident type
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