Intel Corp. and Utah hospital system Intermountain Healthcare are planning to test a system allowing clinicians to interact with electronic health records using gestures, Alice Borrelli, Intel's director of global health and workplace policy, revealed at a health IT event Wednesday.
Physicians have long been dissatisfied with typing and clicking as a way to enter and extract information from EHRs while trying to discuss a patient's condition with undivided attention.
Many physicians have hired so-called medical scribes, who are in essence mobile secretaries for the EHR, to offload the burden of typing and clicking. Some technologists have discussed dictation software made by companies like Nuance as a potential solution.
Using gestures—not unlike the methods used with a smartphone or tablet—has been another long-standing hope. For example, Purdue scientist Juan Wachs published an article in the May 2008 Journal of the Medical Informatics Association touting the possibilities of scrolling through radiology images in the operating room.
There's also a potential health benefit. If the system uses a video camera rather than a touch screen to interpret doctors' gestures, the technology could reduce the spread of infections.
Matthew Quinn, Intel's East Coast managing director of healthcare and life sciences said: “Think of potential uses in the next generation of Ebola (or other epidemic) treatment facilities.”
Intel is one of several tech-industry partners in Intermountain's Healthcare Transformation Lab.
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