Accelerating the Front End of Medicine: Three Digital Use Cases and HCI Implications

Abstract

Digital applications in health care are a concurrent research and management question, where implementation experiences are a core field of information systems research. It also contributes to fighting pandemic crises like COVID-19 because contactless information flow and speed of diagnostics are improved. This paper presents three digital application case studies from emergency medicine, administration management, and cancer diagnosis with AI support from the University Medical Centers of Münster and Göttingen in Germany. All cases highlight the potential of digitalization to increase speed and efficiency within the front end of medicine as the crucial phase before patient treatment starts. General challenges for health care project implementations and human-computer interaction (HCI) concepts in health care are derived and discussed, including the importance of specific processes together with user analysis and adaption. A derived concept for HCI includes the criteria speed, accuracy, modularity, and individuality to achieve sustainable improvements within the front end of medicine.

Keywords

• digital health care
• human-centered computing
• emergency medicine
• inpatient data management
• cancer diagnosis
• front end