The Front-End-Design Concepts and Design Elements in the Health Care Setting

Andreas Holzinger works at the Graz University of Technology’s Institute of Information Systems and Computer Media. He holds degrees in data mining, artificial intelligence, computing, mathematics, natural science, engineering, and medicine. They created a computer application that relied on the user interface along with other well-known authors from the same university (Holizinger et al., 2011). Their study’s main goal was to employ the front-end interface to improve the hospital’s workflow. On a tablet PC, patients could complete questions that would later be input into an electronic patient database and displayed when they entered the doctor’s examination room. The objective of the article was to discover the features of an efficient front-end design that adults could use efficiently, especially the elderly patients. The central interest was on the data control functionality that could minimize errors during data input, ability to directly transfer the questions to the enterprise hospital information system and the likelihood of easy manual adaptation and administration of questionnaires. The strength of the system to carry out the management of the raw data relied on classification by medical professionals.

The data management system designed relied on a trade-off between significant factors such as restricted mobility with the aim of achieving optimum performance. The group achieved a solution by building a client-server system that relied on the front-end that used a mobile device. However, they created a front end with thin client solutions. The design of the front-end relied on standard office supplies with interface elements such as dialogue boxes, menus, error messages and sliders (Holizinger et al., 2011). The group developed the front-end software for an 8.4 inch in dots Skeyepad XSL touch tablet running windows.

The results of the developed system showed that patients, medical professionals and hospital managers benefited from the system. Patients were satisfied with the front-end of the application. Medical professionals managed to save up to 90% of their time that was wasted through the use of a manual system. The purpose of the front-end software made the workflow to be efficient and brought patients and doctors in front of the clinical workplace. The system also made it possible to verify correctness of the system. The elements used to create the system were robust, reliable, simple and unobtrusive. The combination of these features built a successful application in a real-life hospital application. Therefore, the selection of appropriate hardware is an essential factor in the development of a successful front-end for a database. The visual gadgets used were also suitable, regarding visibility of texts and simple usability of the devices.

In conclusion, the design developed in this article shows how the integration of technology in a workplace can bring together different environments and improve their functionality. For instance, the system structure contains three tire-concepts; namely, the front-end, middleware and the back-end. The tire system helps to bring together all the features, data, employees and patients and enhances their level of interaction. Consequently, service dissemination and reputation of the firm improves. The level of satisfaction increased since the front-end made their experience better through enhanced operations due to increased patient care satisfaction.

References

Holzinger, A., Kosec, P., Schwantzer, G., Debevc, M., Rainer, H.-W., & Fruhauf, J. (2011). Design and development of a mobile computer application to re-engineer workflows in the hospital and the methodology to evaluate its effectiveness. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 968-977.