Design and User Study of a Do‐it‐yourself ToolEmpowering Healthcare Professionals to Use Databases:

Rit Kh Y A Il Y l S Xi h T H

Databases have received an extra‐ordinary acceptance in the healthcare

Healthcare Industry and Databases A Do‐it‐yourself Tool for Database Evolution

Ritu Khare, Yuan An, Il‐Yeol Song, Xiaohua Tony Huwww.ischool.drexel.edu

I t t ll tFORM DESIGN LAYER FORM MAPPING LAYER

Healthcare Industry

Healthcare Industry

industry. Healthcare domain has a dynamic information environment.Databases in this domain are required to continually evolve based on newinformation requirements provided by healthcare professionals.

•Functional gap between users and

I want to collect information related to an allergy injection such as its site, reaction, etc..

Allergy Injection

Time

Site

Given By

Allergy Injection

Time

Site Given By

Reaction

ID Size Reviewer

Allergy Injection

Reaction

Usability Issues

Usability Issues Healthcare 

professional

1between users and databases

2

•Dependence on IT department

I

Figure 2. The Dual Layered Database Evolution Tool: Using this tool, users can designforms on their own. The tool automatically translates the form components to

Given By

Reaction 

Size

Reviewer

Size Reviewer

Healthcare Information System

Time . Given By

Reaction ID

gy j

DatabasesDatabases

To ensure a high‐quality database, 6evolution quality dimensions wereconceptualized: Normalization,Minimalism Correctness Complete

3

• Inaccurate reflection of user requirements How can we empower 

the healthcare professionals to design and evolve databases 

based on their knowledge of data‐entry 

f ?Data entry Forms

Results and Contributions

y pappropriate database elements.

User Study with Healthcare Professionals

Number of times a participant required assistance

About the ParticipantsP1, P2, and P3 are very comfortable

Data‐entry forms are the most popular data gathering tool among healthcareprofessionals. Forms provide a natural abstraction for databases to these userswho have no background in databases. Thus, form templates offer the health‐care professionals a powerful mode to author information requirements.

Minimalism, Correctness, Completeness, Persistence and Traceability.The Form Mapping Layer is designedto ensure that the evolved databasesatisfies these dimensions.

forms? 

The form design layer offersfunctionalities based on the commondesign patterns found in thehealthcare forms.

Data‐entry Forms

Patient Information

What’s Next?

1%

Field Format Distribution (51 forms)

Research Findings: Participants

1 1

3

2

5

0 0

1

0

5

P1 P2 P3 P4 P5

Form Replication Form Creation

18

Task Completion Time in minutesForm Replication Form Creation

, , yworking with computers. P4 and P5 aremoderately comfortable. Each has 1‐4years of work experience.

User study Round 2 withimproved training based on the

Name

Age

Address

GenderMale

?

?

?

49%

18%

18%

14%Text Input

Radiobuttons

Checkboxes

Dropdown menu

Multi‐formats,    Table widgets etc. 

Research Findings: Participants …rated the tool very high in terms of ease of use and system messages. 

felt empowered and accomplished as they completed the tasks.

who were moderately comfortable with computers drew forms on paper before using the tool.

performed impromptu  innovations, e.g.,  format switching from textbox to dropdown

3

5

910

7

5 5

109

improved training based on thefindings in round 1 and revisedtasks with advanced featuressuch as units, multi‐formats.Mathematical Proof forvalidating the 6‐dimensionalquality of the generateddatabase.

1. R. Khare, Y. An, and I.Y. Song. Understanding Deep Web Search Interfaces: A Survey. ACM SIGMOD Record , 2010. 2. R. Khare and Y. An. An Empirical Study on Using Hidden Markov Model for Search Interface Segmentation. ACM CIKM ,2009. 3. Y. An, P. Dalrymple, M. Rogers, P. Gerrity, J. Horkoff, E. Yu. Collaborative Social Modeling for Designing a Patient WellnessTracking System in a Nurse‐Managed Healthcare Center. DESRIST 2009.  

Figure 1. Database Evolution using User‐designed Form Templates

Database

Male

Female

Data‐entry Form

dropdown.

easily understood the format semantics but had difficulty distinguishing between a sub‐category and a field. 

P1 P2 P3 P4 P5

Ref