Comment 2: http://angel-at-chi.blogspot.com/2011/01/paper-reading-2-medical-communication.html
Supporting Medical Communication with a Multimodal Surface Computer
Anne Marie Piper
Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems
This paper is the dissertation introduction for Anne Marie Piper of the HCI lab at the University of California in San Diego. She starts by talking about how there is becoming more and more older adults with declining physical, visual, hearing, or cognitive abilities and it is becoming increasingly difficult for these individuals to communicate with their physicians. As records and medical technology is becoming more digital many older individuals are finding it harder to communicate what is wrong. Ms. Piper begins by talking about the state of art solution called Shared Speech Interface (SSI). This involves the doctor and the patient sitting at a table-sized computer and through various input forms (keyboard, speech-to-text, etc...) speech is displayed on the screen in speech bubbles for the two to view. The computer also allows for visuals to be displayed for the patient to look at, resize, and comment on with the doctor. Many users have said they are enjoying this systems as it is seen as different and less intimidating as your standard computer setup and allows the patient and the doctor to review what they said to correct communication errors. 
Ms. Piper then talks about her work that she will be doing with her dissertation which is going to focus more on current practices and challenges of communication between doctors and their patients. She is going to set up cameras and watch different aspects of communications between doctors and their patients including verbal and non verbal communication and queues, body orientation, eye gaze, gestures and what kinds of interactions the two have with medical records and photos. She will then use this data to develop a Shared Conversation Space, an improvement on the SSI that will be a multimodal medical communication device. She says that the key aspect she is looking at improving on is how the system captures and represents speech. The interface will start very simple and then be modified based on research until a prototype is ready for testing. She plans to install the first trial of this at her local health care center and through the use of video recordings (showing its use) and questionnaires continue to refine the project.She says the overall goal of the system is to provide direct benefits to adult patients and an increased efficiency in communication. She also wants the interactions between patients and doctors to be more comfortable and the patient to feel more confident and independent.
This is a very interesting paper as one of my interests is to see how computing can affect the medical field and make the doctors jobs easier. As records become more and more digital it will be possible that soon all paper records will be non existent and that doctors will have all records on digital media (such as IPad) and be able to simply talk to it about all the patients symptoms and records and easily be able to diagnose what is wrong and prescribe a solution. This also makes it much raiser on adults with communication problems as they will be able to talk to the doctor and anything they want to know can easily be answered by the doctor in some form of media. I also think that this kind of technology and understanding of the role that communication plays between a doctor and a patient is key in other forms of medical technology such as mobile surgery centers and long-range computer-based surgery. I think that this study is a great idea and the idea to use the table-top computers is a good idea. My only concern is that they may be a few years too early as older patients who are unfamiliar with computers might find the devices intimidating and be afraid of or unwilling to use them. I think that there needs to be a lot of focus on the use of the device after it has been implemented and its overall effectiveness in the assistance of the interaction needs to be closely looked at.
Very interesting point of view. I have seen other opinions on how the technology might be too early since "the current older patients" are easily intimidated by computers. I guess more observation would reveal whether or not these patients can adapt to the computing environment, however I do not doubt of the research's usefulness now or in the future.
ReplyDeleteMy older brother is a medical student (soon to graduate in May), so I have had a fair amount of exposure to his field and have thought a lot about how computing could benefit doctors and patients alike. This novel solution sounds very useful.
ReplyDeleteUseful indeed! However, I believe if the same amount of effort would have been applied toward researching the use of this technology for patients that are actually familiar with it, then the benefit would be much greater.
ReplyDeleteI just heard about a study yesterday morning discussing how the communication between doctor and patient was affected if they were using digital aides versus not using them. The results of that particular study seemed to indicate that the doctor/patient communication interaction was not significantly improved due to the device, though the report also indicated that this was in conflict to other studies already conducted. What this tells me is that this technology CAN be a good facilitator for improved communication, but does not necessarily indicate that communication will automatically be better. It comes down to the individual and still shows that we, as social animals, need to continue to work at improving our interpersonal communication skills.
ReplyDeleteI really liked you're view on the application's that doctors could have. Most hospitals are moving to paper free systems now a days.
ReplyDeletehey please note that this paper reading # 2 and the next one is paper reading # 3.
ReplyDeleteStart the next paper assignment blog with Paper Reading #4 ...
thanks