Project Galen: User-Centered Tablet EHR Development

Galenos
Ronald P. Vullo, Ph.D., Nicolas Thireos, MS, Chad E. Weeden, MS IT, Edward P. Holden, MBA
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
152 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623

Abstract

Project Galen is an ongoing student developed, open-source, standards-based EHR system built for touch-screen tablet devices that access a database server rather than store data on the tablet. Project Galen employs user-centered design techniques that reduce the depth of hierarchical structures that are commonly found in menu-driven EHR systems. Development has progressed significantly past the initially reported design phase.

Introduction

The previously reported1,2 phase of Project Galen was to design a user-centered EHR interface that is modular in nature and takes advantage of touch-based tablet form factor devices. The primary goal of the design is to minimize the number of steps it takes to perform a given task and to reduce the time and effort required to access patient information. In 2011 students built a browser-based prototype and database back-end based on this initial design.

Current Status

The authors have re-architected the browser-based client to be an “app” client, leveraging the previous design and multi-layered architecture. The latest class of students then fleshed-out the design and functionality within this new app-based system.

The current version of Project Galen incorporates access to tablet hardware such as built-in camera, dynamically generated vector graphics and charts, multi-lingual user interface, and the ability for users to configure the server connection.

Current Database Design

current database er diagram

App Configuration Screen

App Configuration
This is the only data which is saved on the tablet. Users may select the language Galen will use for dialogs, labels, etc.

Login

App Configuration

Patient List (“Home” Screen)

Patient List

Patient Summary

Patient Summary

Orders & Reports

orders and reports

Vertical Orientation

orders and reports orders and reports

Medical History

medical history

Multilingual

medical history medical history

Galen Architecture

Galen Architecture
Brief presentation on Molly3

Issues

PhoneGap/iOS6/XCode 4.5.1 Bug

With the switch to iOS 6 and Xcode 4.5 Cordova (PhoneGap) would compile and run on the iOS simulator, but not on physical devices. The compile issue seems to have been a bug in Cordova which was fixed with the 2.2.0 version update (http://shazronatadobe.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/whats-new-in-cordova-ios-2-2-0/) released on October 27, 2012 at 4:42 p.m. As of the evening of October 28, 2012 we have updated and tested Galen and are now able to resume development.

Apple’s Developer Certificate Complexity

This is something of an irritant - especially with a project that extends over a significant period of time and involves many developers.

Next Steps

Continue to Add and Flesh Out Sections & Subsections

More/Better Data Entry

Icon Highlighting

Additional Languages

Prepare Server-Side Components for Distribution

Prepare App for Distribution

Explore Android Tablet Options

Add Image Capture

Develop Vector (SVG) Graphing and Visualization

The D3 Library looks very promising for graphing.

medical history

References

  1. Vullo, Ronald P., Ph.D., Chad Weeden, MS, Anne Haake, Ph.D.; User-Centered Multi-touch Slate Computing Interface Design for EHR. Poster presented at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) annual meeting, Washington, D.C. (November, 2010).
  2. Vullo, Ronald P., Ph.D., Nicolas Thireos, MS; Project Galen: An Open Source Electronic Health Record. Poster presented at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Spring Congress, Phoenix, Arizona (May, 2008).
  3. Vullo, Ronald P., Ph.D., Molly: Simplifying Development of Complex Web Apps, Invited presentation for IEEE CS/CIS Rochester chapter(June, 2012)
  4. http://phonegap.com
  5. http://d3js.org