Anatomically Integrated In-Place Visualization of Patient Data for Cooperative Tasks with a Case Study on a Neurosurgical Ward

The workflow in modern hospitals entails that the medical treatment of a patient is distributed between several physicians and nurses. This leads to intensive cooperation, which takes place under particular time pressure and requires efficient conveyance of relevant patient-related medical data to colleagues. This requirement is difficult to achieve with traditional data representation approaches. In this paper, we introduce a novel concept of anatomically integrated in-place visualization designed to engage with cooperative tasks on a neurosurgical ward by using a virtual patient’s body as spatial representation of visually encoded abstract medical data. Based on the findings of our field studies, we provide a set of formal requirements and procedures for this kind of visual encoding. Moreover, we implemented a prototype on a mobile device that supports the diagnosis of spinal disc herniation and has been evaluated by 10 neurosurgeons. The physicians have assessed the proposed concept as beneficial, especially emphasizing the advantages of the anatomical integration such as intuitiveness and a better data availability due to providing all information at a glance. Particularly, four of nine respondents have stressed solely benefits of the concept, other four have mentioned benefits with some limitations and only one person has seen no benefits.