Aigner, W. (2005). Interactive Visualization of Time-Oriented Treatment Plans and Patient Data - Thesis Summary. ÖGAI Journal, 24(1), 29–32. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12708/173326
This thesis presents methods to support protocol-based care in medicine. Time-oriented treatment plans and patient data are represented visually providing various interaction possibilities to aid execution and analysis of medical therapy plans formulated in the representation language Asbru.
We introduce a two-view approach consisting of a Logical View and a Temporal View. The Logical View depicts therapy plans using a flow-chart like representation based on “clinical algorithm maps”. The Temporal View on the other hand depicts plans as well as patient data in form of parameters and variables over time. The plan visualization method within the Temporal View is based on the idea of LifeLines. For being able to depict hierarchical structures and temporal uncertainties, we extended this concept and a novel glyph called PlanningLine has been developed.
The development is embedded into a 3-step evaluation process including a user study with eight domain experts (physicians) at the beginning to acquire users' needs, a design evaluation, and an evaluation of our software prototype at the end of the thesis project.