Hugine Akilah L, Guerlain Stephanie A, Turrentine Florence E
Department of Systems & Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
Department of Systems & Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
J Surg Res. 2014 Sep;191(1):74-83. doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2014.03.046. Epub 2014 Mar 22.
Treemaps are space-constrained visualizations for displaying hierarchical data structures using nested rectangles. The visualization allows large amounts of data to be examined in one display. The objective of this research was to examine the effects of using treemap visualizations to help surgeons assess surgical quality data from the American College of Surgeons created the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database in a quick and timely manner.
A controlled human subjects experiment was conducted to assess the ability of individuals to make quick and accurate judgments on surgery data by visualizing a treemap, with data hierarchically displayed by surgeon group, surgeon, and patient. Participants were given 20 task questions to complete involving examining the treemap and comparing surgeons' patients based on outcomes (dead or alive) and length of stay days. The outcomes measured were error (incorrect or correct) and task completion time.
120 participants completed 20 task questions for a total of 2400 responses. The main effects of layout and node size were found to be significant for absolute error, P < 0.0505 and P < 0.0185, respectively. The average judgment time to complete a task was 24 s with an accuracy rate of approximately 68%.
This study served as a proof of concept to determine if treemaps could be beneficial in assessing surgical data retrospectively by allowing surgeons and healthcare administrators to make quick visual judgments. The study found that factors about the layout design affect judgment performance. Future research is needed to examine whether implementing the treemap within a dashboard system will improve on judgment accuracy for surgical quality questions.
树形图是一种受空间限制的可视化方法，用于使用嵌套矩形显示层次数据结构。这种可视化方法能够在一次展示中呈现大量数据。本研究的目的是检验使用树形图可视化来帮助外科医生快速及时地评估来自美国外科医师学会创建的国家外科质量改进计划数据库中的手术质量数据的效果。
进行了一项有对照的人体实验，以评估个体通过可视化树形图对手术数据做出快速准确判断的能力，数据按外科医生组、外科医生和患者进行分层显示。参与者被要求完成20个任务问题，包括检查树形图并根据结果（死亡或存活）和住院天数比较外科医生的患者。测量的结果是错误（正确或错误）和任务完成时间。
120名参与者完成了20个任务问题，共得到2400个回答。发现布局和节点大小的主要效应对于绝对误差分别具有显著意义，P < 0.0505和P < 0.0185。完成一项任务的平均判断时间为24秒，准确率约为68%。
本研究作为一个概念验证，以确定树形图是否有助于外科医生和医疗管理人员通过快速视觉判断来回顾性评估手术数据。研究发现布局设计因素会影响判断性能。未来需要进一步研究在仪表板系统中实施树形图是否会提高手术质量问题的判断准确性。
