In the constant race for increased clinical effectiveness and enhanced patient safety, Microsoft has updated its Health Common User Interface. Built via a partnership with the National Health Service (NHS) in England, the Microsoft Health CUI is designed to enable healthcare organizations to take advantage of a common user interface for clinical applications. With version 1.3 of CUI, Microsoft continues to offer the User Interface Design guidance and Toolkit controls for free in an effort to provide a common ground across different health applications.

"Imagine moving from hospital to hospital or clinic to clinic and encountering an entirely different user interface and clinical system each place you work. It would be like asking accountants to be equally proficient on a wide variety of spreadsheet applications or writers to know how to expediently edit on every kind of document software on the market. That just wouldn't work. Clinical work-flow is no different. We clinicians need standardized applications and a common user interface to help us", revealed Bill Crounse, MD, Microsoft Global Healthcare Industry Manager.

This is precisely where the Microsoft Health Common User Interface comes into play. Available to developers of healthcare applications since July 2007, the CUI evolved to version 1.3 with the addition of a new technology platform. CUI 1.3 features new demonstrations as well as samples and controls and is designed to leverage Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight.

"A common look and feel to systems across any institution decreases the chances for errors, but nowhere is that more important than a healthcare institution where lives are at stake. Sharing the road map for the next 18 months allows developers to plan for new updates to the Microsoft Health Common User Interface, meaning they can implement them faster and with better success, reducing the margin for error and challenges", explained Tim Smokoff, general manager of worldwide public sector, Microsoft Healthcare and Life Sciences division.