Cottage Med EMR Usability Review

Using Cottage Med was a little bit confusing , too much Frames , and windows , the navigation provided in many ways and i can’t consider the UI usability ….
one of my teacher who i suggested Cottage Med long time ago , and give it sometime to tell him what i know about the software and how to use it ..likes it , but always asking me about fixing some reports review or how to configure the system ….i believe he used to use it every day , but first time of starting up Cottage Med was confusing..in usability .
here is a little fast review , and i mainly trying to focus on what i didn’t like, not the great usable features as always :

Download : need to do simple register and login to download it either Mac or Windows .. also you can download , There are some video Tutorials Cover the Software features such as ( Patient Registration , Storing Paper ,Progress Notes , Progress Notes , Health_Measures ,Writing_Rx_and_Alerts ,Billing , Customizations , and how to use the Phone Book )..

Install : at My windows , it’s run directly without installation just unZip the package and run the EXE file ..

Startup :soon as you excute the system you get the system protection password.and it’s ( hello )at the default first run..which you can easily change after you login .

Soon as you start it you get Cottage Med Home page , which add the software note simple intro with 2 nice buttons , the first is click here to start the second is Import your old Data ..

also you can recognize sample data list at the right of the Home frame ..Interface:
The Interface looks really simple , with standard software’s menu , Software Features Buttons Menu , there is Data Tool bar for Data Operations
at the left sidebar you can see drop down menu with the system frames again ..( Patients list , Form ,…….etc )
records browser ,to scroll down to your records ( Q. what if those records are 1000? )

Data : View , Insert , modify & Delete :
List View :you can list the patients , with the main details ( first name , last name , sex , B date , age , and last visit , including the patient address with contact phone number … healer name included with the patient status ) …
You can Customize the Data Listing , easily by right click and choosing how you want to View your Data ……
also right click on any filed you can insert the current date instead of writing it down every time
There is something Missing here , editing the Data of a patient Only Edit those data not the whole data and there is no Click Link to
1-View the complete Data for this Patient …including History and events.
2-Edit the complete form Data ..
Other wise this List View cont connected to the Form view ..
Form View :
including Patient Info ( Basic patient’s History Details , with contact details ) , which is active for editing , by scrolling down your mouse scroll you get another patient data ( ? ).
Form View is Formed of many Tabs , for Clinical use and billing use ….

adding Data in patient Form made me wonder if this system is auto saving my data cause i didn’t recognize save button !!!..

Searching : searching Form is the same as listing the patients list ..and the most interesting is all fields are active …can’t say it’s simple search but it’s kind of usable one ..

Year 2000 :
some of playing around and getting some interesting errors and bugs as example :
when the patient’s BDay (8-9-2000) and his last Visit was at ( 1-5-1999 ) , How Old she was when she visited ?!!!!

Unclear printing Forms:
some Forms which supposed to be Printed were not Clear at all ….

Graphs and Charts : some interesting features here , and it’s including this software with the needed Clinical usable charts with ability to Edit , but ,i have problems in editing some of them especially growth chart… and Family Diagram worksheet …

Features of this software at the Official site Included many features i didn’t get the chance to test yet … this is was just fast notes about Cottage Med install , interface , and Data flow features .