A novel visualisation to improve situation awareness & decision making in primary care
File(s)
Author(s)
Patel, Ahmed
Type
Thesis
Abstract
Healthcare professionals in primary care need to process and interpret an ever-increasing amount of patient data in a very limited time, which challenges their ability to address all relevant information to make informed decisions that influence patients’ lives. Electronic Health Records (EHR) are the main source of information in primary care and are overloaded with detailed, yet poorly organised information. They require healthcare professionals to spend substantial cognitive effort in the sense making of data, potentially leading to medical errors, and impacting patient safety. Healthcare providers report frustration in locating, customising and prioritising data in EHRs, with almost no time before or during the consultation to review the patient’s information. To tackle the increasing volume of patient data and complexity, primary care practitioners require tools to make sense of the data and integrate it into their daily workflows. Visualisations are an established means of organising and communicating information. Well-designed visualisations offer quick insights and overviews, facilitate the structuring of information, reduce cognitive load, and reveal patterns within complex data.
This doctoral research develops a novel holistic integrated information visualisation (HI-viz), providing General Practitioners (GPs) with a quick overview and ‘essence’ of the patient in real time. This will help GPs cope with information overload, enhance situation awareness, and ultimately improve decision making, patient care and outcomes.
Currently, there are no solutions integrated with the EHR system and with the physician’s workflow, that provide a holistic at-a-glance view of the patient health state, supporting their strictly limited time before and during clinical consultations. The design followed the User Centred Design (UCD) framework, guided by theories and concepts from Design, Human-Computer Interaction and Cognitive Psychology (e.g., pre-attentive processing, visual processing, Gestalt) and by engaging GPs and other stakeholders throughout the process, including understanding their needs and wants, iterative design process and evaluation.
This doctoral research develops a novel holistic integrated information visualisation (HI-viz), providing General Practitioners (GPs) with a quick overview and ‘essence’ of the patient in real time. This will help GPs cope with information overload, enhance situation awareness, and ultimately improve decision making, patient care and outcomes.
Currently, there are no solutions integrated with the EHR system and with the physician’s workflow, that provide a holistic at-a-glance view of the patient health state, supporting their strictly limited time before and during clinical consultations. The design followed the User Centred Design (UCD) framework, guided by theories and concepts from Design, Human-Computer Interaction and Cognitive Psychology (e.g., pre-attentive processing, visual processing, Gestalt) and by engaging GPs and other stakeholders throughout the process, including understanding their needs and wants, iterative design process and evaluation.
Version
Open Access
Date Issued
2023-09-30
Date Awarded
2024-03-01
Copyright Statement
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives Licence
Advisor
Porat, Talya
Baxter, Weston
Sponsor
UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Grant Number
EPSRC DTP EP/R513052/1
Publisher Department
Dyson School of Design Engineering
Publisher Institution
Imperial College London
Qualification Level
Doctoral
Qualification Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)