Monday Morning UX: Observation

Every Monday I share news, links and more focused on user experience, usability, and user-centered design in the healthcare industry and beyond.  Consider it a Monday morning UX debrief.  This week’s theme:  Observation

UX Term of the Week

Observation:  According to Usability 24/7’s Usability Glossary, obersvation is

“the process or action of closely watching something or someone with the intention of capturing information.”

News, Views & Stuff You Can Use

Experiments vs Observational Studies: Definition, Differences & Examples:  This great video from Study.com is a good place to start when discussing observation.  It provides a great overview regarding “collecting data through observational studies and experiments and the differences between each.”

Observational Research in the Age of the Electronic Health Record:  Christopher G. Chute, Chief Research Information Officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine, explores the role of the EHR in observational research in this 2013 commentary for the American Journal of Epidemiology. 

“The implications for observational research on patient outcomes, and clinical epidemiology in particular, should be obvious. The costs in time and resources for algorithmic case and control identification, electronic harvesting of normalized data into study data sets and registries, and linkage for the discovery of potential clinical outcome events across a myriad of clinical providers in a study region will all be dramatically reduced compared with the historical model of human chart abstraction. Although the long-sought vision of being able to do an entire epidemiologic study “in an afternoon” may remain elusive, the proportion of time and resources that can be focused on data integrity and consistency measures, case validation, and thoughtful analyses can be correspondingly increased.”

Watch & Learn:  Designing Observational Care: This November 2012 entry to Healthcare Design’s “Watch & Learn” series, Ashley Dias, AIA, ACHE, LEED AP, EDAC discusses how various observational bed models “affect the pre-design and programming phases on a (healthcare) architectural project.”  It is so important to consider how the design of your facilities is impacting your clinical practices.    

Teaching Future Doctors the Art of Observation:  Since 2009, the Yale School of Medicine & Yale Center for British Art works to  “improve diagnostic skills in future doctors by having them view and analyze very detailed works of art” from the Center’s collection.  This amazing, innovative program is spawning similar programs at other universities with medical and art schools.

Your Monday Morning Music Moment

We hear a lot about observation from the facilitator’s standpoint, but what about the perspective of those being observed?  Here’s one man’s story…