Catherine Plaisant
Exploration of temporal sequences in medical records
11th April 2010, 14:00 - 15.30
Entrée libre et gratuite.
LRI Bât 490, Salle 79
(how to get there ?)
Abstract
I will present our recent work on the visualization of temporal patterns, with a focus on electronic health records (EHRs). Specifying event sequence queries is challenging even for skilled computer professionals familiar with SQL. Our recent projects explored novel ways to specify complex temporal searches or search by similarity. Our latest interface (LifeFlow) summarizes collections of event sequences while representing the temporal spacing of events within sequences. I will demonstrate several prototypes and discuss how we work with clinicians and hospital administrators on case studies to evaluate our strategies. Finally I will give a preview of our other projects related to electronic health record systems interfaces.
Biography
Dr. Catherine Plaisant is Associate Director of Research of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. She earned a Doctorat d'Ingenieur degree in France in 1982 (similar to a Industrial Engineering PhD) and has written over 100 refereed technical publications on diverse subjects such as information visualization, digital libraries, universal access, image browsing, help, digital humanities, technology for families, or evaluation methodologies. She co-authored with Ben Shneiderman the 4th and 5th Editions of Designing the User Interface , one of the major books on the topic of Human-Computer Interaction.
She enjoys working with multidisciplinary teams on designing and evaluating new interface technologies that are useable and useful. Research contributions range from focused user interaction techniques (e.g. Excentric Labeling) to innovative visualizations (such as LifeLines for personal records or SpaceTree for hierarchical data exploration) and interactive search interface techniques such as Query Previews. Those interaction techniques have been carefully validated with user studies and are finding applications in industry, government information systems and digital libraries.