A nursing focus on EMR usability enhancing documentation of patient outcomes.

Achieving the healthcare reform goals of broad electronic medical record (EMR) adoption and meaningful use will require that usability of EMR's be addressed. A usability checklist was implemented in a process improvement redesign of nursing documentation in an academic medical center to ensure optimal design of the user interface in the EMR. The outcomes of this framework were based on metrics of usability: efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. Implementation of a usability checklist as standard work ensures a focus on the user interface design to enhance use of the EMR by nursing in clinical care and improve patient outcomes.