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In my previous post: achieving interface consistency in EMRs, I presented Nygren, Wyatt and Wright (1998) view of EMR interfaces components. These are documents, data contained within these documents and cues. In this post, would like to place a reminder to the types of data that may be contained within EMRs documents. Data can be textual, numeric, graphs, images and other multimedia forms as audio and video. Excluding audio and video, These types were presented by Wright, Jansen and Wyatt(1998) in their excellent article titled: how to limit clinical errors in interpretation of data.

These data types carry different meanings to what is used by Database Management Systems. For example numeric data is not integers and textual are not strings. Numeric is meant to include things like laboratory results for example:ALT 33mg/dL and AST 44 mg/dL. One of the principles presented by Wright, Jansen and Wyatt, is that we humans interpret such numeric data best if presented in a vertical form as opposed to horizontal form. They also mention the significance of framing in presenting textual data.

If we think of design guidelines to be a hierarchy of design guides, at the base should be principles that address each of these data types firsts:

• Textual
• Numeric
• Graphs
• Images
• other multimedia: audio and video.

Nygren, E., Wyatt, J.C. & Wright, P., 1998. Helping clinicians to find data and avoid delays. Lancet, 352(9138), 1462-6.

Wright, P., Jansen, C. & Wyatt, J.C., 1998. How to limit clinical errors in interpretation of data. Lancet, 352(9139), 1539-43.