Master Thesis Defense: Daphne Foldes

Speaker: Daphne Foldes

Supervisors: Drs. K. Pitula, O. Ormandjieva

Examining Committee: Drs. T. Fevens, E. Shihab, J. Paquet (Chair)

Title:  Using Tag Clouds as a Tool for Patients’ Medical History Visualization and Record
Retrieval

Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Time: 11:00 a.m.

Place: EV 11.119

ABSTRACT

Reading through a patient’s medical history can be challenging at best, let alone when the patient has a lengthy medical record. This can be a challenge when the patient is a relatively healthy person and even more challenging for a patient with a medical condition. Having a tool to quickly view and retrieve the pertinent elements of a person’s medical record can be useful, especially in cases where a healthcare practitioner is treating a new patient. We propose a visualization tool that makes use of a tag cloud that would allow a healthcare practitioner to easily visualize and retrieve the essential elements of a patient’s medical record. A prototype was created to run usability testing of the tag cloud tool and collect feedback from healthcare practitioners on the usefulness of such a tool in their day-to-day interactions with patients. Twelve paramedical practitioners tested and were questioned on the tool. The findings of this usability testing showed that such a visualization tool would be helpful to paramedical practitioners seeing a patient for the first time, as well as when dealing with patients who have a lengthy medical history.