Diagnostic radiology reports are increasingly being made available to patients and their family members. However, these reports are not typically comprehensible to lay, recipients, impeding effective communication about report findings. To address this problem, we developed a prototype system that aims to facilitate communication about radiology imaging findings among pediatric patients, their family members and clinicians in the clinical setting.
Rapport is a novel hand-held tablet application that automatically organizes report content and provides lay-friendly explanations and visualizations on-the-fly. It uses natural language processing (NLP) technology such as Apache cTAKES to identify clinically relevant terms and pulls 3D visualizations of the human anatomy as well as definitions from ontology databases, such as MedlinePlus, Wikipedia, and RadLex. Finally, based on collaboratively curated points of interest, Rapport generates a set of discussion topics to help patient families apend notes or questions they would like to discuss with the doctor.
The Health Experience and Applications (Hx) Lab investigates how interactive technologies can be designed and developed to facilitate personal health-related information awareness and understanding. We study, design and prototype computing tools for digital capture and communication of personal health status and progress, drawing from the perspectives of clinical caregivers, families, and individuals.
