Identifying visual search patterns in eye gaze data; gaining insights into physician visual workflow.
As health information technologies become more prevalent in physician workflow, it is increasingly important to understand how physicians are using and interacting with these systems. This includes understanding how physicians search for information presented through health information technology systems. Eye tracking technologies provide a useful technique to understand how physicians visually search for information. However, analyzing eye tracking data can be challenging and is often done by measuring summative metrics, such as total time looking at a specific area and first-order transitions.



In this paper, we propose an algorithmic approach to identify different visual search patterns. We demonstrate this approach by identifying common visual search patterns from physicians using a simulated prototype emergency department patient tracking system.



We evaluate and compare the visual search pattern results to first-order transition results. We discuss the benefits and limitations of this approach and insights from this initial evaluation.
MedStar Institute for Innovation - National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, 3007 Tilden St. NW, Suite 7M, Washington, DC, 20008, USA allan.fong@medicalhfe.org.
Allan
A
Fong
MedStar Institute for Innovation - National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, 3007 Tilden St. NW, Suite 7M, Washington, DC, 20008, USA.
Daniel J
DJ
Hoffman
MedStar Institute for Innovation - National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, 3007 Tilden St. NW, Suite 7M, Washington, DC, 20008, USA.|Georgetown University School of Medicine, 3800 Reservoir Rd NW, Washington, DC 20007.
A
A
Zachary Hettinger
MedStar Institute for Innovation - National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, 3007 Tilden St. NW, Suite 7M, Washington, DC, 20008, USA.|Georgetown University School of Medicine, 3800 Reservoir Rd NW, Washington, DC 20007.|The State University of New York, University at Buffalo, Amherst, NY 14216, USA.
Rollin J
RJ
Fairbanks
The State University of New York, University at Buffalo, Amherst, NY 14216, USA.
Ann M
AM
Bisantz
D000465:Algorithms; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D005133:Eye Movements; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010820:Physicians; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D057188:Workflow
algorithm; eye tracking; health information technology; usability; visual search patterns