[humanser] Question about Electronic health records systemcompatibility for social work practicum student

[JD Townsend]

Ahh, electronic medical records.  My hospital informed me that our child & adolescent mental health services would go paper-less in 2003 and I was delighted, thinking this would give me a more equal footing with my light-dependent peers.  It was about 10 years later when the EMR finally arrived.  It was Meditech and Jaws could not work at all,  but I found that WindowEyes could, to some extent, work.  Blind Services engaged a man to address the issue and he worked very hard, but to no avail.

I ended up using paper.  I scanned the needed documents, edited them into MS Word files, and they were scanned into the system after I completed them.

Now I understand the Meditech has become Windows-based, so I don’t know about current access issues.

Last year outpatient services started using the Athena EMR.  With some help this program is now usable.


John D Townsend, LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker  (SW3765)
Daytona Beach  FL   USA                                                                                

From: Maida Avdic via HumanSer
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2019 10:11 PM
To: humanser at nfbnet.org
Cc: maidaavdic at unomaha.edu
Subject: [humanser] Question about Electronic health records systemcompatibility for social work practicum student

Hello fellow humans service students and workers,

My name is Maida Avdic and I am an Masters level social work student in Omaha, Nebraska. I am getting ready to do my final practicum experience at a local county mental health hospital. This facility is in the process of finally transitioning from paper documentation to an electronica health records system for all of its departments this summer. This system is called MediTech and they are launching version 5.67. Today, I went with an IT specialist from my state VR agency to try to test JAWS, NVDA, & Windows Narrator as possible options for screen readers that I can use with this electronic health records system. Unfortunately, we found out that the software manufacturer had already let my future supervisor and the IT team at the facility know that JAWS is not compatible with their system. Then, when we tested NVDA and Windows Narrator, we found that neither of those screen readers were compatible. Our final attempt will be with voiceover on a MacBook to see if that is compatible next week. 

So, I am just curious if anybody has used this particular electronic health records system before or is currently using it with any success? On a more general level, I would love to hear which electronic health records software each of you is using successfully with one or more screen readers and which ones you have had problems with in the past? How did you get around these problems? I know that this is a big issue for blind professionals that work in healthcare and human services right now, especially considering the lawsuit that NFB has filed against Epic Systems on behalf of a blind hospital employee.  I even called a third party tech company, Virtual Vision Technologies, whose sole purpose is to make screen readers and other accessibility programs compatible with mainstream software such as electronic health records systems. When I spoke to somebody at this company, he sounded very optimistic about being able to help, but he did inform me that the process of creating Scripts specifically for the program that I would be using is very expensive. Because I am just a student who will only be at the facility a couple days a week for a school year and because the facility is still trying to work through this huge transition, it would not be financially feasible for me to ask my state agency (which is going through an extreme budget deficit) or my university to pay for such an expensive process of working with this company. I am very concerned not only for this practicum, but also because when I graduate, I know it will be a real challenge to find employment that I am passionate about the population and where the documentation system is accessible. Thank you so much everybody and I look forward to hearing any suggestions, feedback, or previous experiences that you can offer.

All the best,
Maida Avdic
Master of Social Work & Master of Public Administration Candidate 2020
University of Nebraska Omaha Grace Abbot School of Social Work
Mobile: (402)-515-5336
maidaavdic at unomaha.edu
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