News
January 28, 2021

Designing Health IT to empower patients

Dr. April Savoy and Dr. Richard Holden discuss designing HIT for patients

Regenstrief faculty members discuss user-centered design at Brown conference series

Regenstrief research scientists April Savoy, PhD, and Richard Holden, PhD, participated in a panel discussing the need to design health information technology (HIT) for use by the everyday person. The discussion was part of a virtual conference series organized by the Alpert Medical School at Brown University called “The Patient and the Practitioner in the Age of Technology:  Promoting Healing Relationships.”

The virtual conferences explored how the electronic health record (EHR) and other technologies have affected the relationship between patients and providers and between providers and their work. Drs. Holden and Savoy presented in the third session of the series, which focused on human-centered design and ideas for empowering patients to use HIT.

Dr. Savoy’s work focuses on the application of human factors engineering to develop, evaluate and integrate health information technology into workflows to improve the quality of healthcare delivery. Her research has innovated the use of smart forms for referral communication, mobile computing in various healthcare settings, and the use of health information exchange in making sure that care coordination is executed well. Dr. Savoy is an assistant professor at the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology in Indianapolis. She is also a core investigator and director of the Human Computer Interaction Lab at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development Services’ Center for Health Information and Communication.

Dr. Holden is a national leader in the application of human factors engineering and psychology to design and evaluate patient-facing technology to improve health. He is currently working on apps to facilitate care for older adults with chronic conditions. Dr. Holden is also an associate professor at Indiana University School of Medicine and chief healthcare engineer at the Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science.

The session was part of an 8-part series for providers, patients, HIT designers, health technology officials, researchers and medical organization leaders. Regenstrief faculty member Richard Frankel, PhD, was on the Scientific Committee for the series.

About Regenstrief Institute

Founded in 1969 in Indianapolis, the Regenstrief Institute is a local, national and global leader dedicated to a world where better information empowers people to end disease and realize true health. A key research partner to Indiana University, Regenstrief and its research scientists are responsible for a growing number of major healthcare innovations and studies. Examples range from the development of global health information technology standards that enable the use and interoperability of electronic health records to improving patient-physician communications, to creating models of care that inform practice and improve the lives of patients around the globe.

Sam Regenstrief, a nationally successful entrepreneur from Connersville, Indiana, founded the institute with the goal of making healthcare more efficient and accessible for everyone. His vision continues to guide the institute’s research mission.

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