"And how are you doing with that medication?"

It is critical to make the electronic health record (EHR) easy to use, to prevent errors that may be harmful to patients.  This is common sense.  We have had many fine scholars detail the unintended consequences to patient safety when EHR usability is poor.  I work to address these issues in my own research.  I write about, evangelize about it, teach my students about it, and incorporate it into my research.  So, today I got a full dose of what happens when one of the most common mistakes happens:  patient identification error.  I brought my daughter to the doctor for her annual physical, and because she is a junior in high school, I waited in the waiting room for her to finish.  First of all, we really do respect and like our physician group...but mistakes happen.  When the doctor called me in for the conclusion of the visit, both the doctor and my daughter let me know that there was a mix up and that indeed, my daughter was NOT on the three medications they thought she was [she is on no medications].  Apparently one of the office staff members had entered these meds into her chart erroneously... and they've been there on the chart for months.  In my absence from the exam room, apparently the conversation from the doctor to my daughter did assume she had the associated health problems that accompany the erroneously listed medications.   Luckily my daughter spoke up for herself and let them know that those were wrong, and they must have the wrong information.  It was my daughter who said to me... "Mom, what if I could not have spoken up for myself?  What if I were unconscious?  I am glad I was able to correct it."  Now, I realize that this is an all too common mistake... and I realize that the personal example is, luckily, rather innocuous.  But, to my daughter's point... it could easily have been worse.  And, unfortunately it is worse for so many people.  The doctor's office discussed that there are several other patients by the same name, so that is how it happened.  Understood.  But, this is an excellent example of why a standard in EHR usability would help to prevent this from happening.  I am not talking about having all EHRs look and feel the same way.  I am, however, talking about standardizing well established design principles that already address patient identification.  For example, consider the NISTIR-7804 (https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2017/04/28/EUP_WERB_Version_2_23_12-Final-2.pdf)  report to the design recommendation of preventing patient identification error.  In other words, let's do a better job immediately on these preventable usability issues.  Let's help our medical staff members by making it harder to make an error, and easier to get it right!