At the heart of Accuro’s evolution are the QHR Product Managers, who stand at the intersection of building the right product and building the product right. They set the vision and strategy for QHR products, and they create problem-solving roadmaps by understanding what the market needs, by collaborating with their internal teams, and by listening to feedback from you, the people using Accuro.

Combining this input and expertise, we are guided by a long-term vision for Accuro. Our plan is to modernize our technologies, our processes, and our product, to continue our mission of connecting providers to their patients, information, and each other. This starts with Accuro’s stability, and with a future-forward focus on scalability and sustainability.

What follows is not only a guided tour of our roadmap but also a look into the enhancements we’ve already implemented and those on the cusp of being released.

Performance Improvements

Over the course of this year, we’ve honed in on essential improvements to Accuro’s performance. This has involved complex development work around caching data, indexing, and other optimization functions at the database level. Some of these improvements have reached you already and their impact will vary from clinic to clinic. They include the following highlights:

• Large lists of Tasks load faster in the Home section. This has involved a background change to support quicker loading.
• Faster lab and document reviews. Lab and document reviews now happen in a background thread, allowing you to cycle through your reviews more efficiently without the program lagging after clicking the Review button. You’ll clearly see which lab or document you’re currently on, then you’ll just click ‘Review’ and move to the next item.
• Previous patient’s chart clears before loading the next patient. When you search for and select the next patient in the EMR section, the previous patient’s chart will clear before the new patient’s chart is loaded. This provides a clear indication to you that the action is underway and reduces the chance of information being added or manipulated in the wrong chart.
• The ability to stop a Query Alert in progress. Now when you run a query, you’ll have the option to cancel it and stop the whole process, not just in the user interface but in the background as well. Running queries during clinic hours can degrade performance for other users in your system, so if you start an intensive query but then decide to delay it, you can stop it and carry on in Accuro.

For a more detailed list of performance updates to Accuro since July 1^st, view the Improvements in Action article.

User Experience

It’s been a few years since Accuro’s last user interface update, so we’ve been engaging with customers directly to determine how best to provide a more accessible and intuitive experience. That engagement takes various forms, including NIHITO (Nothing Interesting Happens In The Office) meetings, where Product Managers ask users about the problems they’re trying to solve and their experience with a specific feature or function; and user research, where we invite customers to speak more broadly about their product use.

The goal of our research is to strike a balance between depth of function and ease of use, so user input is pivotal to directing the improvements that will make Accuro work better for you. It’s also important to us that we do this iteratively, with no large-scale, sweeping changes. We know users rely on workflow consistency to do their jobs, so adjustments will be made section by section and in small increments.

As an example, the first area of focus for user experience modernization is the Day Sheet. Though still in the prototype stage, the new concept is currently in its fourth iteration and was informed by user testing with more than 11 clinicians during the development process. This direct user involvement challenges our assumptions about features and functions and helps us understand the issues our customers face in practice. As a result, we can solve problems holistically and address your concerns and expectations with more precision.

If you’d like to participate in our user research and testing for 2022, click here to tell us more about who you are and how you use our products.

A Fresh Aesthetic

After 20 years of developing Accuro on the inside, we’ve recently turned our attention to the look and feel of Accuro on the outside. It’s an evolutionary step that will reflect what we believe Accuro stands for today—the purpose, personality, and brand DNA behind the product—as well as where we’ve set our sights for the future.

We can’t reveal much more than that right now, but this reimagining of our flagship product has been a labour of love and we’re excited to share it with you in the coming months.