Let’s start with a confession: many electronic health record (EHR) configurations are designed for a mythical creature known as “the average physician.” This elusive being is somehow a pediatrician, a trauma surgeon, and a hospitalist all at once. They document quickly, never complain, and love every alert that pops up. Unfortunately, this creature doesn’t exist. And yet, we keep designing for them.
Enter personas, a tool that’s been around in user experience (UX) circles for decades but is still shockingly underused in healthcare IT. If you’ve ever sat through an EHR build session where someone said, “Let’s just make it work for everyone,” you’ve witnessed the exact moment where a persona could have saved the day.
What are personas, and why should you care?
A persona is a fictional but research-based representation of a real user. Think of it as a character sketch for someone who will actually use your technology. In healthcare, that might be Dr. Speedy, the Emergency Department (ED) doc who documents with thumbs of fury on a tablet while walking, or Nurse Navigator Nina, who spends her day coordinating care across specialties and systems.
Personas aren’t just cute profiles with stock photos and fake names; they’re strategic empathy tools. They help teams stop designing for “users” and start designing for people. And in healthcare, where the stakes are high and the workflows are complex, that shift is not just helpful; it’s essential.
Building personas: No guesswork allowed
Creating personas isn’t about sitting in a room and imagining what a doctor might want. It’s about doing the work: interviews, observations, surveys, and, yes, even shadowing clinicians in the wild. Using vendor anecdotes or internal assumptions as your foundation usually results in a persona that’s more fiction than function.
Real personas reflect real workflows. They capture the nuances of clinical roles, from the tech-savvy resident who lives on their phone to the seasoned attending who still prints out their patient list. Personas include context: Is this person using the EHR by choice or because their job requires it? Are they accessing it on a desktop in a quiet office or on a phone in a noisy hallway?
And let’s be clear: personas are not one-size-fits-all. An internist in a community hospital has different needs than a subspecialist in an academic medical center. Using a generic label like “physician” suggests the persona lacks the specificity needed for effective design.
Personas in action: Configuring for real people
So how do personas actually help with EHR configuration? Let’s say you’re building documentation templates. Instead of asking, “What should we include for physicians?” you ask, “What does Dr. Speedy need to document quickly and accurately in the ED?” That shift can change everything.
Personas guide decisions about interface layout, alert thresholds, order sets, and even device preferences. They help you avoid the “lowest common denominator” approach that pleases no one and frustrates everyone. Instead of designing for everyone, you design for someone, and that someone represents a real user group.
This isn’t just theory. I’ve seen EHR builds where personas led to smarter decisions about clinical decision support, reducing alert fatigue for some roles while preserving safety for others. I’ve seen documentation workflows tailored to the needs of specific personas, resulting in faster charting and fewer clicks. And yes, I’ve seen personas used to justify removing features that no one actually used because the persona made it clear that the feature was irrelevant.
Personas as change management tools
Beyond configuration, personas are powerful tools for change management. They give stakeholders a shared language. Instead of arguing about what “clinicians” want, you talk about what Dr. Speedy or Nurse Navigator Nina needs. That clarity reduces friction and speeds up decision-making.
Personas also help with training and onboarding. When you know for whom you’re designing, you can tailor your education materials accordingly. The tech-savvy resident doesn’t need a two-hour training session on basic navigation. The reluctant attending might need a one-on-one session with a peer champion. Personas make those distinctions obvious.
And let’s not forget governance. In meetings where decisions are made about EHR changes, personas keep the conversation grounded. They remind everyone that behind every configuration choice is a real person trying to do a real job. That’s a powerful antidote to the “let’s just make it work for everyone” mindset.
Common objections (and why they’re wrong)
Of course, not everyone loves personas. Some say, “We don’t have time.” To which I reply: you don’t have time not to. The cost of bad configuration is high: clinician burnout, patient safety risks, and endless rework. Spending a little time up front to understand your users is a bargain.
Others say, “Our users are too diverse.” That’s exactly why you need personas. Diversity doesn’t mean you throw up your hands and design for no one. It means you identify key user types and design for their specific needs.
And my personal favorite: “We already know what doctors want.” Sure you do. That’s why many EHR configurations end up overwhelming users with alerts and inefficient documentation pathways. Knowing what users want requires research, not assumptions. Personas are the bridge between the two.
Beyond go-live: Personas for continuous improvement
Personas aren’t just useful during the build. They’re valuable long after go-live. You can use them to segment analytics data, identifying which user types are struggling and why. You can use them in usability testing, asking, “How would Dr. Speedy handle this workflow?” You can even use them to recruit participants for future studies, ensuring you’re testing with the right mix of users.
And because personas are living documents, they can evolve. As workflows change, as new roles emerge, as technology shifts, your personas should be updated. They’re not static; they’re strategic.
Conclusion: If you don’t know for whom you’re designing, you’re designing for no one
Healthcare technology is complex, clinician workflows are messy, and EHRs are often the scapegoats for everything that’s wrong with modern medicine. But here’s the truth: most of the pain comes from poor design decisions made without understanding the users.
Personas won’t fix everything. But they will make your configuration smarter, your change management smoother, and your clinicians slightly less likely to want to throw their laptops out the window. And in today’s healthcare environment, that’s a win.
So, before your next EHR build, ask yourself: Who’s the Dr. Speedy, the Nurse Navigator Nina, the Admin Ally? And are you designing for them, or for nobody?