The Red Cross and Red Crescent Health Information System (RCHIS) combines the functionality of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR), Health Information System (HIS), as well as Human Resource and stock management system. Its purpose is to facilitate patient quality of care, early warning for outbreak detection, accountability/reporting, and resource management. Short-term, emergency medical teams and support staff responding to acute clinical needs in a humanitarian context are the intended end users.

To explain the functional design principles and usability testing protocol implemented in initial RCHIS design and development phases to ensure technological fit within the humanitarian medical context.

RCHIS development followed the patient-user journey, with each patient/staff interaction encapsulated by a microservice. The integration of multiple microservices enabled RCHIS to mimic various patient journeys. The functional scope of each microservice was designed by medical end-users and was further used for access management. The value and variable design, including validation rules, were led by health informaticians and existing medical standards. Intuitiveness and ease of use guided User Interface design, with targeted medical end-user feedback collected on a twice-monthly basis in addition to early design workshops, field immersion, and post-development pilot testing.

Support and implementation of RCHIS were not inherently guaranteed. As such, the process of co-designing with end users had the primary benefit of ensuring effective scope and technological fit given the humanitarian context, but also the secondary benefit of improving internal acceptability and advocacy.

The added value of digital health records as a quality assurance mechanism is well documented. However, the increased workload and reduced employment satisfaction affiliated with the rise of EMRs illustrated a need to re-evaluate current design and use within clinical settings. The design and development approach taken for RCHIS is one attempt to improve human-computer interaction in the clinical setting.