Customization Isn’t Features — It’s Fewer Decisions
- Sherwin Gaddis
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Dr Ayo said, "Love it!"
Most EHRs measure flexibility by how many options they offer.
More codes.
More search results.More configuration screens.
On paper, that looks like power.
In practice, it often means more decisions than a provider should have to make while documenting care.
The cost of repeated searching
During onboarding, one of the first patterns we watch for is repetition.
Not mistakes.Not errors.Just the same actions performed over and over.
In this case, it was diagnosis selection.
The codes were all there.
The search worked.
Nothing was technically wrong.
But the same handful of codes were being searched for again and again — dozens of times a day.
Each search was small.
Together, they added up to friction.
Why searching feels heavier than it looks
Searching forces context switching.
You stop documenting.
You scan a list.
You confirm what you already know.
You return to the note.
That interruption may only take a few seconds, but it repeats constantly.
Over time, it creates:
slower charting
mental fatigue
a feeling that documentation is “dragging.”
The system isn’t slow.
The workflow is.
What actually changes when repetition is removed
The solution wasn’t new codes or a smarter search.
It was structure.
By identifying the diagnoses that appeared most often and placing them into a dedicated, quick-access list, something subtle happened:
searching disappeared
choices narrowed
documentation stayed uninterrupted
The reaction was immediate — not because the interface looked different, but because the work felt different.
That response matters more than any metric.
Why this isn’t a “feature.”
This kind of change doesn’t show up in feature matrices.
It doesn’t demo well.
It doesn’t photograph well.
It doesn’t sound impressive when listed.
But it does one critical thing:
It removes unnecessary decisions from the moment care is being documented.
That’s what customization actually is.
Fewer decisions scale better than more options
Most systems try to solve complexity by adding flexibility.
Real-world workflows benefit more from selective constraint:
fewer choices
clearer defaults
predictable paths
Customization isn’t about exposing everything.
It’s about hiding what doesn’t matter until it does.
The pattern this fits into
This moment follows the same pattern we see repeatedly:
A system goes live
Real usage reveals repetition
Repetition creates fatigue
Structure replaces search
Work speeds up
Nothing about the underlying data changed.
Only the way decisions were presented.
Closing thought
Providers don’t struggle because they lack options.
They struggle because they’re forced to make the same decisions too many times a day.
The most meaningful customizations aren’t the ones that add power.
They’re the ones that quietly remove friction — and let work continue uninterrupted.
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