Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. The Department of Veterans Affairs VA has developed a new exam room design standard that is intended to facilitate a greater degree of patient centeredness. This new design includes a wall-mounted monitor on an armature system and a moveable table workspace. To date, however, this design has not been formally evaluated in a field setting. We conducted observations and interviews with primary care providers and their patients from three locations within the Phoenix VA Health Care System, in a pilot study comparing the new exam room design standard with the older legacy exam rooms.
When using the new exam room layout, providers spent a greater proportion of time focused on the patient, spent more time in screen-sharing activities with the patient, and had a higher degree of self-reported situation awareness.
However, the legacy exam rooms were perceived as better facilitating workflow integration. Provider and patient debrief interviews were supportive of the new exam room design. Overall, our field study results suggest that the new exam room design does contribute to a greater degree of patient centeredness, though more thorough evaluations are required to support these preliminary results.
Substantial research has been conducted on the impact of the electronic health record EHR on provider-patient interactions in ambulatory care. However, challenges persist regarding how to effectively integrate the EHR into patient visits and clinical workflow, while maintaining patient-centered care Saleem et al.
The additional complexity introduced by computerized systems and the EHR can create substantial challenges for provider-patient communication, by interfering with the course of communication and interpersonal aspects of the provider-patient relationship, including trust Kazmi, ; Alkureishi et al.
