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Hi all! Welcome to my UMass Gives page! Here you can learn about the significance and impact of my research and have the opportunity to donate to my unfunded PhD research. The members of my research team are listed as well as my bio. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, have ideas to expand on my work, or would like to show some love! My email is vmartinez@umass.edu. Thank you all for your support.
It takes a village.
Vanessa
This mixed methods research study aims to evaluate how electronic health record (EHR) interface design affects efficiency and accuracy of clinical documentation of LGBTQ and heterosexual patient data. LGBTQ patient data was selected for this study as LGBTQ individuals make up approximately 3.8% of the U.S. adult population (Hafeez et al., 2017) and continue to be marginalized by the U.S. healthcare system despite reports from the Institute of Medicine (2011), and other LGBTQ health experts, on the need for research to reduce LGBTQ health disparities.
Vanessa is an industrial engineering PhD student at UMass Amherst. As a queer woman of color and human factors researcher, she is passionate about leveraging usability research to support initiatives that aim to reduce LGBTQ health disparities. This project is her PhD dissertation research project. Currently, she seeks funding for participant compensation and to share the findings of her study. Individuals interested in learning more/donating to this project can do so on this page! All donations are tax-deductible. Thank you!
Electronic health records (EHRs) in healthcare systems are in a position to empower healthcare professionals. They hold promise for more efficient and effective exchange of health information, which can reduce healthcare costs and health disparities. The usability of EHRs, however, is often reported as a barrier to these potential advancements. The effects of usability of EHR interface design (e.g., data entry methods) on clinical documentation (e.g., the act of entering patient information into an electronic medical chart) remains understudied. Additionally, these effects on the documentation of specific types of patient data, such as sexual history data, are also understudied. Usability testing and research of this kind is needed to enable EHR design to support more efficient, effective, and equitable data collection, which will allow EHRs to reach their full potential of empowering health professionals as they care for patients, especially those who are disproportionately affected by health disparities. This research study aims to evaluate how EHR interface design affects efficiency and accuracy of clinical documentation of LGBTQ and heterosexual patient data. LGBTQ patient data was selected for this study as LGBTQ individuals make up approximately 3.8% of the U.S. adult population (Hafeez et al., 2017) and continue to be marginalized by the U.S. healthcare system despite reports from the Institute of Medicine (2011), and other LGBTQ health experts, on the need for research to reduce LGBTQ health disparities.
This research study aims to evaluate how EHR interface design affects efficiency and accuracy of clinical documentation of LGBTQ and heterosexual patient data. LGBTQ patient data was selected for this study as LGBTQ individuals make up approximately 3.8% of the U.S. adult population (Hafeez et al., 2017) and continue to be marginalized by the U.S. healthcare system despite reports from the Institute of Medicine (2011), and other LGBTQ health experts, on the need for research to reduce LGBTQ health disparities.
Broadly, these findings will serve to inform the design and training of clinical documentation of sexual history data in EHR systems. Results from this study will also serve as evidence that organizations and leaders can use to guide EHR data collection-related initiatives to reduce LGBTQ health disparities. The direct beneficiaries of this research are: (a) EHR human factors practitioners, developers, and trainers, and natural language processing engineers and scientists, (b) healthcare professionals that offer LGBT health training and or services to LGBTQ individuals, (c) other LGBTQ health advocates, allies, supporters, and people.
The findings of this research will provide knowledge on:
• The effects of structured (i.e., checkboxes) and semi-structured (i.e., headers and text fields) data entry in EHRs on clinical documentation efficiency and accuracy of sexual history data
• The effects of patient data types (LGBTQ and heterosexual) on clinical documentation efficiency and accuracy of sexual history data
• The state of sexual history clinical documentation in EHRs of a subset of sexual history topics: sexual partner gender, number of sexual partners, sexual behavior, and use of barrier methods
Donated funds will be used to sponsor the following research and research-related activities (please note that the listed dollar values are for estimation purposes):
• Physician and nurse practitioner study participant compensation - $3,500
• Papers and poster conference expenses - $3,000 (e.g., registration, travel, lodging, meals, and poster printing. I will submit to the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Healthcare Symposium, and other professional conferences)
• Other dissertation research and publication expenses $500
Vanessa I. Martinez, MS, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dr. Jenna L. Marquard, PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dr. Shannon C. Roberts, PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dr. Mary Paterno, PhD, CNM, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dr. Elizabeth A. Henneman, PhD, RN, FAAN, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dr. Jordon D. Bosse, PhD, RN, Addiction Research and Education Foundation
J. Aleah Nesteby, MSN, FNP, Cooley Dickinson Health
Ryan E. Pryor, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, Baystate Medical Center
Vanessa is a first-generation Latina who grew up in Tempe, AZ. She completed her AS at South Mountain Community College in 2011 and BSE in Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University in 2015. She completed her MS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in May of 2018, and will obtain her PhD in Industrial Engineering from UMass Amherst in August of 2019. The summer of 2017, Vanessa was selected for a research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, where she identified strategies to improve a health data standard and developed her dissertation concept. To gain real-world perspective on how to pragmatically approach the research questions of her dissertation, this past summer, Vanessa interned with the Digital User Experience Team at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois as a User Experience (UX) Researcher. There, she identified the relationships between insurance companies and the design of data collection tools. Her dissertation aims to evaluate how electronic health record interface design affects clinical documentation, and to provide design recommendations to support equitable and inclusive data collection for LGBTQ patients. As a queer woman of color, and human factors researcher, Vanessa is passionate about leveraging usability research to support efforts that reduce LGBTQ health disparities through the improvement of health IT.