Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Comparing And Improving The Design Of Physical Activity Data Visualizations, Peter M. Frackleton

Masters Theses

Heart disease is a leading cause of death in the United States, and older adults are at highest risk of being diagnosed with heart disease. Consistent physical exercise is an effective means of deterring onset of heart disease, and physical activity tracking devices can inspire greater activity in older adults. However, physical activity tracking device abandonment is quite common due to limitations on what can be learned from the activity data that is collected. Better data visualization of physical data presents an opportunity to surpass these limitations. In this thesis, a task-based human subject study was performed with three different …

The Application Of Usability Engineering Methods To Evaluate And Improve A Clinical Decision Support System, Kristine Desotto

Masters Theses

Delays in the process of diagnosing and treating cancer are common and lead to confusion and undesirable outcomes. Care coordinators are often embedded within the system of care to manage follow-up care. Electronic and real-time reminder systems can be used to support the care coordinator’s work, but electronic health record (EHR) usability is known to be poor. This study, completed in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Connecticut Healthcare System, evaluated the Cancer Coordination and Tracking System (CCTS), an EHR-linked, web-based tool for cancer care management.

A set of expert-driven and user-driven usability engineering methods was applied to …

Using Real-Time Location Systems & Simulation Modeling To Improve Healthcare, Colby Thomas Mattie

Masters Theses

In the healthcare industry, facility managers often find themselves with limited resources, lack of timely data, and unexpected crises that they have to respond too. Their options are based on hastily made assumptions and a limited understanding of all implications of the problems at hand. This scenario has become a concerning issue for the healthcare industry where problems can arise at any time and every minute counts. The healthcare industry is also littered with wasteful processes and regulations that increase the cost for physicians and facility operators and decrease the overall care for the patients. This is very evident in …