title: Empirical Study on the Impact of a Tactical Biosurveillance Information Visualization on Users' Situational Awareness.
abstract: Decisions on antibiotic-resistant infection (ARI) prevention in dynamic health care settings should be agile and target the right process at the right time. Health information technologies can aid the recognition of high-risk situations for ARI transmission and timely facilitate operators' situational awareness (SA) in various military and civilian health care locations or transport platforms. High SA is one of the significant predictors of better performance. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of the developed health information visualization (VIZ) on the users' SA regarding situations when risks of ARI transmission and exposure are high. The enrolled 19 subjects assessed the proposed VIZ artifacts representing 1 scenario, compared the VIZ effectiveness against the currently employed local methods, and reported their SA (perception and comprehension) with the use of a pre- and post-self-rating questionnaire. The results showed that the VIZ significantly increased SA in the study subjects and revealed the importance of communicating the risk of exposure to ARIs. The VIZ enabled the participants to quickly acknowledge the high-risk individuals (super-spreaders), locations (hot spots), and biosafety (deficient infection prevention). The study concluded that SA-oriented technologies may be promising for promoting better infection prevention practices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 987424 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-7424.
authors.forename: Valeriya V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Kettelhut
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 98431 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-4031.
authors.forename: Trevor C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Vanschooneveld
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Informatics Program, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 42nd and Emily Street, Omaha, NE 981150.
authors.forename: James C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: McClay
authors.affiliation: Transplantation, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 42nd and Emily Street, Omaha, NE 981150.
authors.forename: David F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Mercer
authors.affiliation: College of Information Science and Technology, University of Nebraska-Omaha, 1110 S, 67th Street, Omaha, NE 68182-0500.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fruhling
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 42nd and Emily Street, Omaha, NE 68198-4375.
authors.forename: Jane L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Meza
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D055877:Biosurveillance / Q000379:methods*; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D004352:Drug Resistance, Microbial; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010465:Perception; D036301:Qualitative Research; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000592:standards; D012307:Risk Factors; D057566:Self Report; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014857:Warfare