Aaargh!!!!

An attempt at using computerized drug-order entry software showed that it caused lots of problems.

One of the big problems with the system was a poor man-machine interface. "The system just didn't make sense in terms of the way doctors actually worked," says Koppel. It made doctors wade through as many as 20 screens to see the list of drugs for a single patient. By the time a doctor got to the right screen to order a drug, the patient's name was sometimes no longer on the screen, making it easy to confuse to whom the order was going. At other times, the software displayed multiple patient names on a single screen, making it possible to give a drug to the wrong patient, if the doctor was distracted at the moment the order was being finalized. Koppel says he spoke to one doctor who ended up giving a potentially fatal dose of a drug to the wrong patient because of this multiple-name problem. While the patient survived unscathed, the doctor was still shaken by the near-miss two years later.

Is there no one associated with this company who designs user interfaces for a living?