This month was the first time we met with Dr. Dube from the Brown Medical School about the project. The project is described in more detail elsewhere, but basically she needed software that would help the students in her medical interviewing course. Specifically she wanted a program that would help them identify the chief complaint of a patient during an interview. A further extension when this was done would be to help students also determine the history of the present illness.
Dr. Dube supplied us with course materials and readings that her students have been using, gave us an idea about what level her students were at in the course, and showed us the computer cluster that the students usually use.
Our group met briefly during the later part of February to discuss aspects of the project and to nail down what the specifications of the project were.
Our first group meeting of March updated all of the group members about what Dr. Dube had told us at our initial meeting. During the meeting we decided on Macromedia Director as the probable software package that would be used to develop our software. We also designed a preliminary idea of what the various program screens would look like.
The next meeting of the group was involved with completing a very basic interface concept for possible use as a storyboard for the in-class presentation.
The group met with Dr. Dube for a meeting to discuss the progress of the project, design issues, and to determine when a video shoot could be conducted. The video shoot would provide footage of simulated patients for use in the program.
The video shoot was conducted at about 9:30 in the morning and wrapped around 11 at Butler Hospital on the East Side of Providence. Group members recorded actors portraying patients with varying symptoms and problems which would provide a range of difficulty to the student users. Group members were also utilized as actors for some basic cases.
Later in the evening, group members met to finalize details for the storyboard presentation which was to be given on Tuesday, March 17. This included preparing a Director presentation of the basic goals and concepts of the project and a PowerPoint slide show which presented some concepts for the interface of the program.
The group met with Dr. Dube at Rhode Island Hospital to discuss the outcome of the video shoot. It was
generally agreed that the shoot had gone well. Some issues that were raised concerned the quality of the
video and if full-motion video could be implemented in the program effectively, or if a simplified animation
of video stills would be employed. Another issue that was discussed was how much control students should
have over the playback of audio and video (e.g. should students be able to refer back to the video). The
idea of providing a demonstration of how to prepare the case history for the computerized interview was
also discussed. Arrangements were made to have copies of the master tape produced and transcriptions of
the recorded interviews be written by staff members in Dr. Dube's department.
At the last group meeting on March 31, 1998, job assignments were given to each group member to complete for the project demonstrations which begin April 9, 1998. The assignment list is now available on-line.
Tests were also conducted to determine if full-motion video was feasible for the project, or if a reduced-frame version of the video would be used for the prototype.
The prototype of our software is currently being constructed, and is scheduled for a preview on April 7, 1998. Please refer to the Alpha Version Storyboard page for details on the lastest version of the medical interviewing project. The user questionaire is also in process. A reviewable version is posted here. Feedback is appreciated. The class that this program is designed for runs during the fall semester, so testing groups will be students who have previously had the class and/or volunteer physicians provided by Dr. Dube.
At the meeting, Dr. Dube was shown the concept drawings for the revised interface and was given a breakdown of the flow of the program. She had suggestions about how to display the professional history and provided more information about the planned use of this project in class. She also added more information about who would evaluate the students' output. The class is divided up into small groups with a faculty leader in order to observe and conduct interviews with patients. Printouts of the electronically submitted student answers would be provided to the faculty leaders to gauge understanding and progress. The next meeting with our professor is scheduled for April 14, 1998.
At this meeting we discussed the content of the tutorial and help in the program. Dr. Dube provided us with some information that she would like to see included in this documentation. The group supplied her with an audio tape with the final audio for 5 of the 7 interviews, with the other 2 to be supplied shortly. Also discussed at the meeting was the issue of how to let students compare their histories with the professional histories. The consensus was reached that student should not be able to return to the history editing screen after viewing the professional history. Since the nature of the program is a practice tool, more elaborate security schemes were deemed unnecessary.
User testing is tentatively scheduled for the 25 of April, a Saturday.
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