Exploring LifeLines to Visualize Patient Records
Catherine Plaisant, Anne C. Rose · University Libraries (University of Maryland) · 1996
INTRODUCTION 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 (i.e. interview patients) away from their desk and cumbersome workstations. But all the efforts to solve those problems will only succeed if appropriate attention is also given to the user interface design [1][8]. Long lists to scroll, clumsy search, endless menus and lengthy dialogs will lead to user rejection. But techniques are being developed to summarize, filter and present large amount of information, leading us to believe that rapid access to needed data is possible with careful design. While more attention is now put on developing standards for gathering medical records we found that very little effort had been made to design appropriate visualization and navigation techniques to present and explore personal his