title: Toward a cognitive task analysis for biomedical query mediation.
abstract: In many institutions, data analysts use a Biomedical Query Mediation (BQM) process to facilitate data access for medical researchers. However, understanding of the BQM process is limited in the literature. To bridge this gap, we performed the initial steps of a cognitive task analysis using 31 BQM instances conducted between one analyst and 22 researchers in one academic department. We identified five top-level tasks, i.e., clarify research statement, explain clinical process, identify related data elements, locate EHR data element, and end BQM with either a database query or unmet, infeasible information needs, and 10 sub-tasks. We evaluated the BQM task model with seven data analysts from different clinical research institutions. Evaluators found all the tasks completely or semi-valid. This study contributes initial knowledge towards the development of a generalizable cognitive task representation for BQM.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York City.
authors.forename: Gregory W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Hruby
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York City ; NIH Clinical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: James J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Cimino
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York City ; New York Academy of Medicine, New York City.
authors.forename: Vimla
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York City.
authors.forename: Chunhua
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weng