Design and Evaluation of Interaction Technology for Medical Team Meetings

Abstract

Abstract. Multi-disciplinary team meetings (MDTMs) are essential in healthcare, where medical specialists discuss diagnosis and treatment of patients. We introduce a prototype multi-display groupware system, intended to augment the discussions of medical imagery, through a range of input mechanisms, multiuser interfaces and interaction techniques on multi-touch devices and pen-based technologies. Observations of MDTMs, as well as interviews and observations of surgeons and radiologists, serve as a foundation for guidelines and a set of implemented techniques. We present a detailed analysis of a study where the techniques' potential was explored with radiologists and surgeons of different specialties and varying expertise. The results show that the implemented technologies have the potential to bring numerous benefits to the team meetings with minimal modification to the current workflow. We discuss how they can augment the expressiveness and communication between meeting participants, facilitate understanding for novices, and improve remote collaboration.

Collaborative Immersive Analytics

“…A virtual terrain model could be overlaid with sensor data for an environmental engineer, but an urban designer looking at the same AR model might see traffic information overlaid on the terrain. Similarly, using a tablet at the same time as an interactive wall [97,140] or table [134] allows the user to have their own custom private view and input into the shared display space.…”

“…They provide awareness of the actions of others, given that these gestures are Fig. 14: Multi-touch input on a tablet to zoom and scroll through a stack of brain-scans [97] (used with permission). Fig.…”

“…Researchers have also examined the use of personal, dedicated, or generic, mobile devices. For example, in order to analyze brain scans on a wall display, Gjerlufsen et al [39] suggested using a dedicated tangible prop of a brain to rotate and translate the scans (Figure 13), and physical tools to indicate camera viewing directions; Olwal et al [97] suggested using dedicated software running on tablets to provide interaction tools and different views of the brain between colleagues in medical teams (Figure 14). These examples illustrate the large possible range of such mobile devices in terms of both generalizability across analytic tasks, and awareness of others.…”

Smarties

“…In Hachet et al [13] multiple users can see in their devices a view of a 3D object displayed on the wall. Olwal et al [27], use mobile devices to display and interact with parts of radiology material projected on a larger display. They support multi-touch navigation gestures for manipulating content.…”

Supporting distributed collaborations between mobile health workers and expert clinicians in home care

“…Real-time telehealth draws on audio and video communications to enable healthcare providers to communicate with remote patients or other healthcare providers, share medical information and discuss diagnoses and treatment plans. Improved network connectivity is creating opportunities for complex telehealth activities by supporting multiple-channel audio and video streams, real-time sharing of information and new forms of interactions [2,9]. Recently the appropriate integration of communication space and information space to provide a flexible configuration support for different interaction situations has been highlighted in HCI research (e.g.…”