The following is a summary of “Human-centered visualization technologies for patient monitoring are the future: a narrative review,” published in the June 2023 issue of Critical Care by Gasciauskaite et al.
The field of perioperative and intensive care medicine has witnessed significant improvement in patient monitoring due to advancements in medical technology. There is a strong emphasis on continuous improvement and innovation in this area.
For a study, researchers aimed to review the scientific findings and evidence supporting the validity of these technologies. The study suggests that patient-monitoring devices capture an increasing number of parameters, and the interpretation of data becomes more challenging. Support was needed to address information overload and enhance clinicians’ awareness and understanding of patient’s health status. Patient monitoring has traditionally relied on the single-sensor–single-indicator approach, wherein data was presented technology-centered. This involved measuring and displaying specific parameters as separate numbers and waveforms.
The study group suggests a user-centered medical visualization technology, as an alternative, combines various information from multiple sensors, such as vital signs, into a unified indicator. This indicator is an avatar-based visualization, providing a meaningful representation of the real-world situation. They said data are visualized using dynamic shapes, colors, and animation frequencies, enabling more efficient perception, integration, and interpretation than alternative formats.
They confirmed the beneficial effects of this technology in computer-based simulation studies and concluded that; it enhances clinicians’ situation awareness, and visualization technologies enable effective perception and verbalization of underlying medical issues, improving diagnostic confidence and reducing workload.
Source: ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-023-04544-0