Informing Visual Display Design of Electronic Health Records: A Human Factors Cross-Industry Perspective

Background Despite their prevalence, poorly designed electronic health records (EHRs) are common, and research shows poor design consequences include clinician burnout, diagnostic error, and even patient harm. One of the major difficulties of EHR design is the visual display of information, which aims to present information in an easily digestible form for the user. High-risk industries like aviation, automotive, and nuclear have guidelines for visual displays based on human factors principles for optimized design. Purpose In this study, we reviewed the visual display guidelines from three high-risk industries—automotive, aviation, nuclear—for their applicability to EHR design and safety. Methods Human factors experts extracted guidelines related to visual displays from automotive, aviation, and nuclear human factors guideline documents. Human factors experts and a clinical expert excluded guidelines irrelevant to EHR. Human factors experts used a modified reflexive thematic analysis to group guidelines into meaningful topics. Disagreements were discussed until a consensus was reached. Results A total of 449 guidelines were extracted from the industry documents, and 283 (63.0%) were deemed relevant to EHRs. By industry, 12 of 44 (27.3%) automotive industry guidelines were relevant, 43 of 115 (37.4%) aviation industry guidelines were relevant, and 228 of 290 (78.6%) nuclear industry guidelines were relevant. Guidelines were grouped into six categories: alphanumeric; color, brightness, contrast, and luminance; comprehension; design characteristics; symbols, pictograms, and icons; and tables, figures, charts, and lists. Conclusion Our analysis identified visual display guidelines organized around six topics from the automotive, aviation, and nuclear industries to inform EHR design. Multiple stakeholders, including EHR vendors, healthcare facilities, and policymakers, can apply these guidelines to design new EHRs and optimize EHRs already in use.