In last week’s post, I defined humane software and asked for feedback. As a reminder, the definition was: an ongoing endeavor that looks beyond the simple goals of the system at any other results and seeks to expand benefits and reduce harms.

One reader wrote in with some profound thoughts on what humane software is. He said that humane software is empathetic and takes into account the ...

In this blog/mailing list, I have been writing about "humane software," particularly as it relates to medicine. Still, I have never stopped to acknowledge it directly or define what it means. So today, I will address that, head-on, by defining humane software. To increase the level of difficulty, or really to avoid a pet peeve, I'm going to try to avoid defining in terms of what it is not. ...

We had a great meeting today with a group of doctors and nurses who are using our scheduling system. This was the first time we had met with them since they started using it, and you won’t believe me when I tell you all of the nice things they had to say. But I am going to tell you two things because they relate to good software overall.

1. One of the doctors turned to me towards the end ...

Healthcare is plagued by constant attacks from hackers trying to obtain valuable patient health information (PHI). Unfortunately, some succeed, keeping healthcare on edge, hoping that they won't be the next breach. As we talk about building better healthcare software, security is an important part of the conversation. It is imperative to keep PHI secure, but as healthcare moves toward a ...

In healthcare, making an administrative choice to use a piece of software in a clinical setting or not isn’t quite the same decision as making a choice to operate on someone or not. However, that software could affect the decision to operate on someone, and should not be discounted.

As with deciding on how to treat a patient, a variety of information and factors should be considered when ...