Visualizing Patient Records 15Sep04

Screenshot, Source: www.cs.umd.edu

In 1998 Ben Shneidermann and some colleagues did a project on Visualizing Patient Records:

Extract:

Computerized medical records pose tremendous problems to system developers. Infrastructure and privacy issues need to be resolved before physicians can even start using the records. Non-intrusive hardware is required for physicians to do their work (e.g. interview patients) away from their desk. But all the efforts to solve these problems will only succeed if appropriate attention is also given to the user interface design. Long lists to scroll, clumsy searches, endless menus and lengthy dialogs will lead to user rejection. But techniques are being developed to summarize, filter and present large amounts of information, leading us to believe that rapid access to needed data is possible with careful design.

In our past project for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services we have developed a new technique called Life-Lines to visualize personal history records. We are now working with IBM Watson Research Center to extend the technique to medical records. LifeLines provides a general visualization environment for personal histories. A one screen overview of the record using timelines provides direct access to the data. For a patient record, medical problems, hospitalization and medications can be represented as horizontal lines, while icons represent discrete events such as physician consultations, progress notes or tests. Line color and thickness can illustrate relationships or significance. Rescaling tools and filters allow users to focus on part of the information, revealing more details.

LifeLines can:
1) reduce the chances of missing information,
2) facilitate the spotting of anomalies and trends
3) streamline the access to details (as LifeLines act as large menus) and
4) remain simple and tailorable to various applications.

We believe that LifeLines have applicability to a number of the health care projects.

related links:
Project website - Human-Computer Interaction Lab / University of Maryland
Demo / Prototype