Developing electronic health record (EHR) systems can be challenging since software developers are not also expected to be clinicians. In this paper, Zhang and Walji present TURF, a framework for the development of EHR systems.

“TURF stands for task, user, representation, and function” (p. 1,056). More information on what TURF stands for is presented in the third page of the paper--it should have been presented on the very first page. Although the authors provide details about the framework, these details should have been substantiated with some real examples. Because of this, the paper seems highly philosophical; however, there are some observations and analysis diagrams.

Readers would benefit from a future, more detailed version of this paper that includes case studies on how TURF can effect the development of medical record systems. That being said, this paper is a good starting point for more concrete research. Overall, real systems based on TURF’s underlying philosophy need to be developed in order for it to be widely accepted.