Joel S. Greenstein

Healthcare information on YouTube: A systematic review

This article reviews the peer-reviewed literature addressing the healthcare information available on YouTube. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were determined, and the online databases PubMed and Web of Knowledge were searched using the search phrases: (1) YouTube* AND Health* and (2) YouTube* AND Healthcare*. In all, 18 articles were reviewed, with the results suggesting that (1) YouTube is increasingly being used as a platform for disseminating health information; (2) content and frame analysis were the primary techniques employed by researchers to analyze the characteristics of this information; (3) YouTube contains misleading information, primarily anecdotal, that contradicts the reference standards and the probability of a lay user finding such content is relatively high; (4) the retrieval of relevant videos is dependent on the search term used; and (5) videos from government organizations and professional associations contained trustworthy and high-quality information. YouTube is used as a medium for promoting unscientific therapies and drugs that are yet to be approved by the appropriate agencies and has the potential to change the beliefs of patients concerning controversial topics such as vaccinations. This review recognizes the need to design interventions to enable consumers to critically assimilate the information posted on YouTube with more authoritative information sources to make effective healthcare decisions.

Realizing Improved Patient Care Through Human-Centered Operating Room Design: A Human Factors Methodology for Observing Flow Disruptions in the Cardiothoracic Operating Room

Background: Human factors engineering has allowed a systematic approach to the evaluation of adverse events in a multitude of high-stake industries. This study sought to develop an initial methodology for identifying and classifying flow disruptions in the cardiac operating room (OR). Methods: Two industrial engineers with expertise in human factors workflow disruptions observed 10 cardiac operations from the moment the patient entered the OR to the time they left for the intensive care unit. Each disruption was fully documented on an architectural layout of the OR suite and time-stamped during each phase of surgery (preoperative [before incision], operative [incision to skin closure], and postoperative [skin closure until the patient leaves the OR]) to synchronize flow disruptions between the two observers. These disruptions were then categorized. Results: The two observers made a total of 1,158 observations. After the elimination of duplicate observations, a total of 1,080 observations remained to be analyzed. These disruptions were distributed into six categories such as communication, usability, physical layout, environmental hazards, general interruptions, and equipment failures. They were further organized into 33 subcategories. The most common disruptions were related to OR layout and design (33%). Conclusions: By using the detailed architectural diagrams, the authors were able to clearly demonstrate for the first time the unique role that OR design and equipment layout has on the generation of physical layout flow disruptions. Most importantly, the authors have developed a robust taxonomy to describe the flow disruptions encountered in a cardiac OR, which can be used for future research and patient safety improvements.

An investigation of the efficacy of electronic consenting interfaces of research permissions management system in a hospital setting

PURPOSE Ethical and legal requirements for healthcare providers in the United States, stipulate that patients sign a consent form prior to undergoing medical treatment or participating in a research study. Currently, the majority of the hospitals obtain these consents using paper-based forms, which makes patient preference data cumbersome to store, search and retrieve. To address these issues, Health Sciences of South Carolina (HSSC), a collaborative of academic medical institutions and research universities in South Carolina, is developing an electronic consenting system, the Research Permissions Management System (RPMS). This article reports the findings of a study conducted to investigate the efficacy of the two proposed interfaces for this system - an iPad-based and touchscreen-based by comparing them to the paper-based and Topaz-based systems currently in use. METHODS This study involved 50 participants: 10 hospital admission staff and 40 patients. The four systems were compared with respect to the time taken to complete the consenting process, the number of errors made by the patients, the workload experienced by the hospital staff and the subjective ratings of both patients and staff on post-test questionnaires. RESULTS The results from the empirical study indicated no significant differences in the time taken to complete the tasks. More importantly, the participants found the new systems more usable than the conventional methods with the registration staff experiencing the least workload in the iPad and touchscreen-based conditions and the patients experiencing more privacy and control during the consenting process with the proposed electronic systems. In addition, they indicated better comprehension and awareness of what they were signing using the new interfaces. DISCUSSION The results indicate the two methods proposed for capturing patient consents are at least as effective as the conventional methods, and superior in several important respects. While more research is needed, these findings suggest the viability of cautious adoption of electronic consenting systems, especially because these new systems appear to address the challenge of identifying the participants required for the complex research being conducted as the result of advances in the biomedical sciences.

The use of advanced technology for visual inspection training

In the past, training with traditional methods was shown to improve inspection performance. However, advances in technology have automated training and revolutionized the way training will be delivered in the future. Examples of such technology include computer-based simulators, digital interactive video, computer-based training, and intelligent tutoring systems. Despite the lower cost and increased availability of computer technology, the application of advanced technology to training within the manufacturing industry and specifically for inspection has been limited. In this vein, a case study is presented which shows how advanced technology along with our basic knowledge of training principles, can be used to develop a computer-based training program for a contact lens inspection task. Improvements due to computer-based inspection training were measured in an evaluation study and are reported.

Optimizing the touch tablet: the effects of control display gain and method of cursor control

The purpose of this research was to assess the effects of control-display gain, method of cursor control, and target size on target selection performance with a touch tablet. In addition, an attempt was made to determine a definition of control-display gain that would generalize across different control-display combinations. The results indicated that a relatively low gain (approximately 0.8 to 1.0) resulted in more efficient target selection performance than did higher or lower gains. An absolute mode of cursor control, in which the cursor appears on the display in a position corresponding to the location of the finger on the touch tablet, resulted in faster selection rates and fewer target entries prior to confirmation than did a relative mode of cursor control. Selection of large targets was faster and more accurate than selection of small targets. Alternative explanations for performance differences are discussed.

A Model of Human Decisionmaking in Multiple Process Monitoring Situations

It is proposed that human decisionmaking performance in multiple process monitoring situations can be modeled in terms of the detection of process related events and the allocation of attention among processes once events are felt to have occurred. An elementary pattern recognition technique, discriminant analysis, is used to generate estimates of event occurrence probability. A queueing theory framework is then utilized to incorporate these probabilities as well as other task characteristics into the solution of the attention allocation problem. The performance of the model is compared with that of subjects in two experiments.

Synchronous remote usability testing: a new approach facilitated by virtual worlds

This study proposes a new methodology for conducting synchronous remote usability studies using a three-dimensional virtual usability testing laboratory built using the Open Wonderland toolkit. This virtual laboratory method is then compared with two other commonly used synchronous usability test methods: the traditional lab approach and WebEx, a web-based conferencing and screen sharing approach. A study was conducted with 48 participants in total, 36 test participants and 12 test facilitators. The test participants completed 5 tasks on a simulated e-commerce website. The three methodologies were compared with respect to the following dependent variables: the time taken to complete the tasks; the usability defects identified; the severity of these usability defects; and the subjective ratings from NASA-TLX, presence and post-test subjective questionnaires. The three methodologies agreed closely in terms of the total number defects identified, number of high severity defects identified and the time taken to complete the tasks. However, there was a significant difference in the workload experienced by the test participants and facilitators, with the traditional lab condition imposing the least and the virtual lab and the WebEx conditions imposing similar levels. It was also found that the test participants experienced greater involvement and a more immersive experience in the virtual world condition than the WebEx condition. These ratings were not significantly different from those in the traditional lab condition. The results of this study suggest that participants were productive and enjoyed the virtual lab condition, indicating the potential of a virtual world based approach as an alternative to the conventional approaches for synchronous usability testing.

Chapter 55 – Pointing Devices

Publisher Summary There is risk in drawing generalizations about the optimality of a specific input device for a given task or environment based on the empirical research presented in this chapter. The chapter focuses upon input devices that designate locations and movements in two-dimensional space, including touch screen devices, light pens, graphic tablets, mice, trackballs, and joysticks. These devices are all reasonably well suited to pointing or selection among items on a display as well as to the input of graphical information. The chapter begins by considering human factors considerations affecting the design and selection of different pointing devices. Comparative human performance and preference data are then presented to aid in the selection of an appropriate device for a particular application. Brief descriptions of the technologies underlying each device type are also provided in the chapter.

Application of a Mathematical Model of Human Decisionmaking for Human-Computer Communication

When a human and computer perform similar tasks in parallel, it is important that there be effective communication between the two entities. Because explicit communication may add to the humans workload, an implicit method of communication is suggested in which the computer references a model of human performance to predict the humans actions. The computer then determines its own actions so as to complement rather than conflict with the predicted human actions. A two-stage mathematical model of human performance is employed in an experimental situation in which both a human and computer act as decisionmakers. Implementation of the model significantly improves the humans performance, without degrading the computers performance. Research into additional experimental and real-world situations is suggested.

Listening to users in a manufacturing organization: a context-based approach to the development of a computer-supported collaborative work system

Abstract This paper reports the findings of a field research effort to develop a computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) system in a power tool organization and provides an overview of the features of this system. It presents the customer-driven, context-based methodology that was used to capture the workflow and the critical issues that must be addressed by the CSCW system. It also describes the evaluation techniques and performance measures that were used to compare the resulting system with the existing product development system in the organization. It was found that a combination of ethnographic and human-centered design methodologies is a powerful approach for capturing information about stakeholder needs and using it to develop a CSCW system in such organizations. Through evaluative ethnography it was possible to determine tasks that were feasible and others that were inappropriate for integration into the CSCW system. This methodology also identified issues that hindered the adoption of the CSCW system, permitting strategies for adoption to be proposed that might serve as guidelines to designers of future CSCW systems. Lastly, this development, implementation, and evaluation of a CSCW system in an industrial environment demonstrate its effectiveness to other similar organizations that could benefit from the use of CSCW systems. Relevance to industry This paper describes the development of a computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) system in an actual manufacturing organization using a human-centered, context-based design methodology. The evaluation of the resulting CSCW system demonstrates the effectiveness of the methodology employed, as well as the potential CSCW systems have to address the needs of product development organizations.