The daily reality of many surgeons isn’t just stressful operations. It’s also having to fight with clunky software just to get the information they need, like a patient’s scan, a medication list, a schedule update… It’s a lot. Hospital tech was supposed to make things easier with things such as electronic health records, tools for scheduling, and digital dashboards. These were designed to bring order and efficiency to a (usually) chaotic/unpredictable environment.
But the problem was that most of these systems weren’t built specifically for surgeons, but were geared more towards administrators and general staff. For surgeons, this means that they end up frustrated and making mistakes that could have been avoided with better design.
In this article, we’ll look at why hospital tech misses the mark for surgeons so often and what it’s like to work around those systems.
The Disconnect Between Tech Design and Surgical Realities
Imagine applying to one of the general surgeon positions and getting the job only to be annoyed with the tools you have to work with. This happens all the time because most of the software hospitals use wasn’t designed for surgeons.
Look at electronic health records, for example. Originally, they were built with a focus on billing, documentation, and meeting regulations, not to help doctors and surgeons work more efficiently. This works fine for administrative staff, but in the OR, things are totally different. There’s constant pressure and during a procedure, a surgeon can’t just walk over to a computer and tap through screen after screen. Instead of this, they have to rely on nurses and assistants to dig through files and find information, which makes everything go slower.
Scheduling systems are just as tricky. A lot of them don’t even account for extra time that’s needed to prep and clean an operating room, which leads to backlogs and late starts. Even the dashboards inside the OR are often drowning in data nobody ever needs, so good luck trying to find something important within a short amount of time. All of this is stressful, wastes time, and increases the risk of mistakes.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though. With better UX design (the kind that takes into consideration the context and needs of the people using the tools), these systems could be so much more helpful.
The Most Common UX Flaws in Surgical Tech
Design isn’t that important for hospital software and most systems are built to function and that’s it. This means that the priority wasn’t for them to work well for the people who use them in stressful environments. Surgeons don’t have time to dig through clunky menus or scroll through random alerts during a procedure. They need quick, clear information at the right time. Sadly, they don’t always get that and here’s why.
1. Cluttered Interfaces
There’s a ton of information on surgical dashboards and OR displays. They’re designed to be useful to everyone, meaning they do too much at once. The result of this is a cluttered interface that makes it hard to tell what’s important and what isn’t.
If a surgeon is in the middle of a procedure, this isn’t just annoying, it’s dangerous. If they can’t see vital signs, equipment readiness, and imaging results clearly on the screen, they’ll miss critical details. An interface where the most urgent information stands out is essential in any design of this kind.
2. Non-Intuitive Navigation in EHR Systems
Electronic health records are notorious for being hard to navigate. You have to dig through multiple tabs, drop-down menus, and unrelated screens just to find a basic piece of information. For surgeons, this means wasting precious time.
Even when the data is there, the interface makes getting to it harder than it should be. A better design would be simple, with fewer steps needed to access information that’s most commonly used.
3. No (or Not Enough) Customization or Role-Based Views
Not every surgeon needs the same data, but most hospital systems treat everyone the same. A general surgeon looks at the same cluttered dashboard as an orthopedic specialist does, and neither has the option to customize it to what they need.
A proper hospital system would offer role-based views and customization, so surgeons don’t have to waste their time on going through irrelevant information.
4. Poor Mobile Access
You can’t always access a desktop computer in a surgical setting, but a lot of hospital software operates as if a surgeon in their scrubs, in the middle of a procedure, can just sit at a desk with a mouse and a keyboard, looking through data and maybe even playing Candy Crush. Mobile access is usually limited, and hands-free options? Nowhere to be found.
This makes it incredibly hard to check a patient’s chart, pull up imaging, or basically do anything of this sort. If systems were designed with voice control, wearable tech, or even better mobile interfaces, surgeons’ jobs would be that much easier.
Conclusion
No one becomes a surgeon to battle with drop-down menus and click through 17 tabs just to find a lab result, but here we are. Medicine has had some incredible advancements, but hospital tech still seems to be stuck in a world where users come last. Even the ones saving lives.
But it doesn’t have to (and it shouldn’t!) stay like this because in the OR, every second counts.
