WHAT IS MICROSOFT HEALTH CUI?
To understand the reasoning behind Microsoft Health CUI, consideration needs to
be given to clinical applications that are used within a healthcare setting, such
as a doctor's practice, ambulance, hospital, or in the community.
Healthcare professionals utilize a variety of clinical applications developed by
different application providers, who have their own approach to user interface design.
This results in an inherent level of inconsistency between user interfaces that
has the potential for risk to the patient.
To take a simple example, consider how a patient's name and date of birth could
be displayed differently in three clinical applications. A healthcare professional
might have difficulty identifying the same patient in each of these applications,
and this could result in them administering the wrong care to that patient.
This is where Microsoft Health CUI can help by promoting a Common User Interface
(CUI) for clinical applications. Healthcare application developers can utilize two
resources from Microsoft Health CUI that support them in developing safer, more
consistent user interfaces.
Firstly, Microsoft Health CUI Design Guidance provides a comprehensive set
of user interface guidelines and recommendations. These can be used to evaluate the clinical safety of existing software
applications, as well as aid in the design of future clinical applications, with the intention to improve patient safety.
Secondly, the Microsoft Health CUI Toolkit provides
ready-made user interface controls that fully adopt the Design Guidance in a number
of Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft Silverlight and
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
These controls can be customized and used within existing or new clinical
applications.
Microsoft Health CUI provides Design Guidance and Toolkit controls for many common clinical task-based scenarios, such as displaying patient personal data and allergies.
Future work includes:
- Displaying tables and charts
- Terminology parsing
- Recording and displaying allergies
- Admissions noting
- Primary Care noting
- Handover
See the Microsoft Health CUI Schedule for further details.