Entries tagged with user interface - Channel 10

Future Tech: A Computer that Reads Lips

sarahintampa — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:10:00 GMT

Scientists at England's University of East Anglia's School of Computing Sciences and Surrey University are working on a computer that can read lips. They've built the software for tracking the movements of a person's face and lips and this software is used to analyze videos of conversations in order to convert them into written transcripts. Funded by England's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the hope is that this system would eventually be a way for the deaf to dictate commands to computers in noisy environments. Dr. Richard Harvey, a professor involved with the project, believes a viable prototype will be available in two years. Currently, the team is working on a library of videos in order to create a database of facial expressions and lip movements used for each letter combination. (via The Raw Feed)

Microsoft Healthcare Common User Interface: Now available free worldwide

bcrounse — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:48:00 GMT

Anyone who works in healthcare knows that many of today’s clinical software applications leave a lot to be desired when it comes to “user experience”. Unlike ubiquitous, commodity software used in other businesses, healthcare applications are highly proprietary and often based on legacy technologies. Clinicians find that much of what’s available today is often too hard to use. Becoming proficient on these clinical applications requires lots of training and that can mean taking already scarce healthcare workers off-line for days or weeks at a time. Worse yet, even if clinicians become proficient on one vendor’s solution, they are likely to encounter something entirely different in every hospital where they work, requiring even more training. But what if there was a common, more standardized user interface for clinical applications? What if the user experience was pretty much the same no matter where a clinician worked? Would doctors, nurses and other clinical workers be better served?

Last July on this Blog I told you about an ambitious project to develop a standardized user interface to administrative and clinical systems. The project was launched more than a year ago by Microsoft and the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. It is part of a country-wide upgrade of the data spine, clinical and administrative applications used by the NHS.

Based on that work, Microsoft has launched The Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI) web site. It provides Design Guidance and controls that allow a new generation of safer, more usable and compelling health applications to be quickly and easily created. In this special video edition of my House Calls for Healthcare Professionals series, we take a look at the the work that's been going on at the NHS and how that work, through the MSCUI, now offers promise to improve worker satisfaction and patient safety around the world. Enjoy the show!

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft Corporation

Downloads: iPod, MP3, PSP, WMA, WMV, WMV (High), Zune

Program Guests

Dr. Mike Bainbridge is a former general medical practitioner who now leads the Clinical Architecture team at NHS Connecting for
Health, a group that delivers innovations in hardware design, clinical interface design and interfaces to the electronic medical record for both healthcare professionals and citizens.

Stephen Corbett is Head of UI Design for NHS Connecting for Health where he evangelizes the user-centred design approach to building software. Since graduating in Ergonomics in 1988, he has been working in the field of software usability in various industries.

Andrew Kirby is a Director at Microsoft UK where he is responsible for the delivery of solutions and services to the National Health Service which includes the delivery of the Common User Interface Programme.

A Common User Interface to Clinical Systems

bcrounse — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:47:00 GMT

On October 21st, 2005, I wrote an entry on this Blog about the need for a more common and intuitive user interface to clinical information systems. Here's part of that entry:

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Jim Lynch, R.N. is quoted by Health Data Management's on-line news service on remarks he recently made during a presentation at the 77th Convention and Exhibit of the American Health Information Management Association. In his address, "Electronic Medical Records: Expect the Unexpected", Mr. Lynch recounts the plaudits and pitfalls encountered at Oklahoma City-based Integris Health during the implementation of their EMR. He says, “A major part of the problem was that the electronic record was not easy to use--the interface is not as simple as Microsoft Word, and many physicians had absolutely no computer skills.”

Indeed! Why is it that EMR interfaces have to be so challenging for clinicians? The typical community physician in many American cities admits patients to more than one hospital. In my own community, it's not unusual for docs to call on three or four different hospitals. One hospital might use Meditech; another IDX; another Cerner; and yet another something else. Even if any one of these systems had the "perfect" user interface, how can a clinician become proficient on all of them? How much training would that take!

Bill Crounse, MD

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I am now extremely pleased to tell you about something that I believe may be the tipping point in moving us toward a common user interface to clinical systems, perhaps worldwide. For the past couple of years, Microsoft has been working with administrators, clinicians and other experts in the United Kingdom to design a common user interface for clinical and administrative systems at the National Health Service. With the consent of the NHS and its Connecting for Health initiative, the design guidelines and tools are now being made available to developers around the world with the launch of the CUI Website.

As noted on the website, design guidance has been produced through a rigorous user-centred design process that incorporates primary and secondary research, usability testing, consultation with software providers and integrated hazard assessments. Patient Safety Assessments (PSAs) are continually performed to ensure the Design Guidance meets safety concerns.

The guidance is targeted at both existing clinical applications and those that are being designed and architected right now. The second part of this release is the implementation of much of that guidance in the form of control libraries for both WinForms 2.0 and ASP.NET. The website contains explanation and samples for each of the Web controls with the Codeplex project hosting a download of both the Winforms and the ASP.NET Control library.

Example of Common User Interface Design

If you are a developer of applications used in healthcare, an IT professional, or just someone who is passionate about clinical information systems, I urge you to become familiar with this excellent work, and help us make it even better by joining the dialogue here on CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com/mscui). Take a look at the CUI Website and be sure to watch the introductory video.

My thanks to our Microsoft UK team and our colleagues at the National Health Service for providing leadership in addressing a much needed solution that will improve patient safety while providing a much easier to use, more consistent interface to clinical systems.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft Corporation