A Proof-of-Concept for Visualizing Healthcare Related Information Trough a Digital Patient Avatar
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Abstract
Introduction
Today, healthcare professionals such as doctors and nurses typically need to access several different medical databases in order to manage healthcare related information of a given patient. For example, one database may contain healthcare records, while another database may contain prescription records. The fragmented existence of the healthcare related information causes that doctors and nurses may not be able to get relevant information to treat the patient best possible way. All in all, current management systems of healthcare related information are unintuitive, complex and cumbersome to interact with.
Accordingly, the objective of the work presented in this poster is to alleviate the problems described above and to introduce a solution that allows simple and intuitive management of healthcare related information.
Results
In this poster we present a novel tablet computer based approach for visualizing medical data through a digital patient avatar. The continuously updated data may be obtained from a variety of sources through defined interfaces. The data including for example functional and anatomical descriptions is linked to the geometry of 3D avatar of the patient, more precisely to their associated locations or body parts in the 3D avatar of the patient. Heuristics may be utilized to link locations of the computer generated three-dimensional anatomical model and portions of the healthcare related information of the subject human to each other.
The health care professionals can interact with the displayed 3D avatar of the patient in various ways. They are able to e.g. zoom in, zoom out, pan, rotate, and select body parts or locations. By selecting a specific location or a body part of the 3D avatar of the patient allows healthcare professionals to view the healthcare related information, originated from various sources or databases, relevant to the selection. The healthcare related information includes e.g. written records, images, videos and the like. This information is multi-layered according to the human anatomy systems. To ensure patient’s safety, all the medical history and prescription information originated from various databases are simultaneously available for visual viewing, on one glance.
It is foreseen to be used first by hospitals and later GPs practices in order to visually browse patients health care information. However there are few on-going approaches to build national healthcare information databases. These amongst the other purposes allow patients themselves access their records which might widen the context of use of our approach.
The research work described in this poster paper is conducted in cooperation with several medical professionals. This work includes structured interviews and usability testing. The preliminary results and feedback can all together be seen very positive and encouraging for continuous research interests.
Based on collected feedback we will investigate possibilities to integrate the proof-of-concept as a 3D viewer for healthcare related information system consisting of real patients and perform a small-scale clinical pilot study in future. Existing challenges with at least user authentication, data security policies and interoperability should also be subject to our future work.
Today, healthcare professionals such as doctors and nurses typically need to access several different medical databases in order to manage healthcare related information of a given patient. For example, one database may contain healthcare records, while another database may contain prescription records. The fragmented existence of the healthcare related information causes that doctors and nurses may not be able to get relevant information to treat the patient best possible way. All in all, current management systems of healthcare related information are unintuitive, complex and cumbersome to interact with.
Accordingly, the objective of the work presented in this poster is to alleviate the problems described above and to introduce a solution that allows simple and intuitive management of healthcare related information.
Results
In this poster we present a novel tablet computer based approach for visualizing medical data through a digital patient avatar. The continuously updated data may be obtained from a variety of sources through defined interfaces. The data including for example functional and anatomical descriptions is linked to the geometry of 3D avatar of the patient, more precisely to their associated locations or body parts in the 3D avatar of the patient. Heuristics may be utilized to link locations of the computer generated three-dimensional anatomical model and portions of the healthcare related information of the subject human to each other.
The health care professionals can interact with the displayed 3D avatar of the patient in various ways. They are able to e.g. zoom in, zoom out, pan, rotate, and select body parts or locations. By selecting a specific location or a body part of the 3D avatar of the patient allows healthcare professionals to view the healthcare related information, originated from various sources or databases, relevant to the selection. The healthcare related information includes e.g. written records, images, videos and the like. This information is multi-layered according to the human anatomy systems. To ensure patient’s safety, all the medical history and prescription information originated from various databases are simultaneously available for visual viewing, on one glance.
It is foreseen to be used first by hospitals and later GPs practices in order to visually browse patients health care information. However there are few on-going approaches to build national healthcare information databases. These amongst the other purposes allow patients themselves access their records which might widen the context of use of our approach.
The research work described in this poster paper is conducted in cooperation with several medical professionals. This work includes structured interviews and usability testing. The preliminary results and feedback can all together be seen very positive and encouraging for continuous research interests.
Based on collected feedback we will investigate possibilities to integrate the proof-of-concept as a 3D viewer for healthcare related information system consisting of real patients and perform a small-scale clinical pilot study in future. Existing challenges with at least user authentication, data security policies and interoperability should also be subject to our future work.
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