VINSIA: visual navigator for surgical information access

Abstract

Information access at the point of care presents a different set of requirements than those for traditional search engines. Critical care in remote (e.g., battle field) and rural settings not only requires access to clinical guidelines and medical libraries with surgical precision but also with minimal user effort and time. Our development of a graphical, anatomy-driven navigator called Visual Navigator for Surgical Information Access (VINSIA) fulfills the goal for providing evidence-based clinical decision support, specifically in perioperative and critical care settings, to allow rapid and precise information access through a portable stand-alone system. It comes with a set of unique characteristics: (a) a high precision, interactive visual interface driven by human anatomy; (b) direct linkage of anatomical structures to associated content such as clinical guidelines, literature, and medical libraries; and (c) an administrative content management interface allowing only an accredited, expert-level curator to edit and update the clinical content to ensure accuracy and currency. We believe that the deployment of VINSIA will improve quality, safety, and evidence-based standardization of patient care.

FIGURE 1.

All of the information is organized by the category functionality in SMW.

FIGURE 2.

The information cycle: users can upload information to different categories in VINSIA and then easily access them.

FIGURE 3.

On the upload page, users can choose multiple categories the file belongs to, then the file will go to the corresponding categories automatically.

FIGURE 4.

To access contents specifically on aortic valve, click the “heart” on the “human body,” followed by the click sequence “cardiac valves” → “aortic valve” → “clinical management”. This access mode only involves mouse clicking without any typing.

FIGURE 5.

Instead of being driven by anatomies, user can also search information based on categories.