Microsoft: Better software can prevent medical mishaps
C|Net | at | by Mike
Inside a business, software with a good user interface can improve productivity. Inside a hospital, it can save lives.
That's the premise behind a new collaboration between Microsoft and Britain's National Health System that seeks to develop a common design for clinical software. Microsoft isn't trying to prescribe the entire software design, but is proposing some commonality in terms of where on a screen medications are listed and what types of information about the drug are listed.
"It is kind of like when you get into a car," said Tim Smokoff, general manager of Microsoft's health care unit. "Every dashboard looks different, but they are all kind of the same." By standardizing on a common way to display medical data, Microsoft hopes the industry can make a dent in the 600,000 errors that take place in U.S. hospitals each year, many of them from medication mix-ups.