According to the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, adoption of new technologies often requires inefficient accommodation by users. These types of disruptions can increase users’ cognitive loads, disrupting their existing workflows and forcing them to adopt new ways of doing things. In healthcare settings, these disruptions often contribute to burnout and medical errors.

Usability of IT has thus become a greater concern in healthcare organizations, and “clinicians who work in multiple care settings using disparate technologies may struggle with the differences in interface design, with adverse impact on patient safety.” This challenge creates the need for increased usability in healthcare technology. For healthcare professionals responsible for reinforcing the safety culture in their units as they attempt to reach Zero Harm, ease-of-use has become essential to maintain effective workflows.

To help address software usability issues in healthcare settings, Origami Risk has developed several features — Public Dashboards, Portal Incident Drafts, and dynamic Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) — that streamline data retrieval, simplify incident entry for frontline staff, and culture reinforcement efforts required to manage adverse events effectively.

Public dashboards

Even if they do not have system login credentials, frontline staff (i.e., nurses, technicians, medical assistants, etc.), unit managers, facility leadership, patient safety specialists, and others need to share information. Public dashboards in Origami Risk help employees, from the unit level to the organization level, to better understand how they are tracking towards goals. Key benefits include:

• Enhanced security means those who have a link are only able to see what’s on the dashboard and are not able to navigate to other areas of the system. This feature reduces the risks of unauthorized individuals viewing data they shouldn’t (thus mitigating HIPAA compliance issues).
• Publicly accessible dashboards can be viewed on-demand or via monitors placed in open workspaces. Primary use cases include support for the dissemination of data that reinforce an organization's safety culture and allows for easier access to more information for a wider population.
• Origami Risk’s Public Dashboards allow users to create a publicly accessible location- or facility-based dashboard that utilizes an anonymous collection link —  a unique URL and QR Code, per location or facility, that can be displayed on a public monitor/tv screen for providing safety-related data. 
• Ability to automatically refresh the dashboard daily.

Public Dashboards help users visualize current initiatives, wins, and areas for improvement at unit levels. They can also be used to provide a holistic view for a facility.  This feature allows teams to do their jobs with fewer barriers and can contribute to a reduction in reliance on personal devices and computer stations. Ultimately, this can result in the ability to provide care that results in better outcomes.

Portal incident drafts

Frontline employees submitting incident details via an intake portal often only have time to capture critical incident details before getting called away to other tasks. For anonymous reporters, the inability to save an incident report draft and return to it later is likely to result in incidents being reported much later — thus, increasing the likelihood of incomplete details — or not being reported at all. 

To encourage timely reporting, portal incident drafts allow even anonymous reporters to securely retrieve and complete an incident draft started earlier. Key features include:

• Auto-save of incidents still in draft mode 
• Secure recall of a draft incident using an incident reporter-created PIN
• An option that allows an incident reporter to create a single security question for use in securely returning to a draft incident

APIs (Application programming interfaces)

APIs optimize interoperability and manage information flows, making the right information accessible to the right people at the right time and reducing the number of systems users must work with. This can streamline workflows, reduce IT staff workloads, and free up resources.

Origami Risk offers third-party and streamlined workflow automation through APIs and integrations. Use can help lead to increased efficiency in managing claims, reduced manual efforts and tasks, streamlined communication, better accountability across departments, and improved healthcare analytics. Origami Risk users don’t have to worry about manually incorporating and adjusting to data changes on the back end, resulting in immediate connectivity, as well as cost and time savings. This solution is ideal for risk leaders and self-insured entities that require a single platform that solves all of their needs. 

Unique highlights of the Origami Risk API include:

• Robust library of RESTful APIs (Representational State Transfer) – Origami hosts a web service/API for other computer systems to push data into it and/or pull data out of it. Origami also has built-in functionality to push data into and/or pull data out of other third-party web services. 
• Web hookup capabilities - The Origami API offers a high level of customizability and can increase the speed to launch. The Origami Risk API can accommodate almost any use case, including web hooks, Epic FHIR, batch processes, and streamline these together without extensive development work. We are currently the only vendor that offers such dynamic APIs. 
• Agnostic development location - regardless of whether the required API resides with a client or with Origami, the API can be configured in either location.
• Up-to-date addressable APIs - Origami uses the most up-to-date API calls and security measures. Origami is certified for multiple measures, including SSAE 18 SOC 1 Type II & SOC 2 Type II, FISMA Moderate System Authorization & Accreditation, and HIPAA NIST 800-53 Security Rule.

Other advantages and features of Origami Risk’s integrated tools and data APIs include:

• Automatically tie information directly from HR and electronic medical record (EMR) systems and pre-populate patient data, reducing the need to double-enter information via lookups, and easing administrative and technical staff burden.
• Integration with a hospital’s existing EMR for streamlined access to any other supporting data. This information is then accessible to healthcare risk managers and lawyers who can more appropriately resolve incidents and claims, which can ultimately help to settle suits more quickly or prevent them altogether.
• Full integration with ADT/HL7 for patient data, in addition to interfacing with EMRs, lab systems (for infection control), pharmacy (formularies), and other systems. This allows for easy data retrieval and aggregation of all adverse events in one system.
• Origami also offers interface options for Embedded URL with POST Call Script, for users doing patient incident collection in Origami initiated from the client’s EMR system.

To learn more about how Origami’s Public Dashboards, Incident Drafts, and APIs can help address usability issues within your healthcare organization, start a conversation with us.