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The Lactate App: Designing a user interface to enhance interpretation of elevated lactate levels in emergency and critical care.

Elzinga, L.F. (2016) The Lactate App: Designing a user interface to enhance interpretation of elevated lactate levels in emergency and critical care. Master's Thesis / Essay, Human-Machine Communication.

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Abstract

Lactate levels stand out as a laboratory measurement in care of emergency and critically ill patients. Hyperlactatemia has the strongest single correlation with mortality in a wide variety of patients, and an increasing number of hospitals widely use lactate levels in relevant departments. The goal of this study was to create a clinical decision support tool to aid clinicians in the process of interpreting lactate levels to a sufficient explanation. The result was a web-based app which used an underlying expert system with a simplified model of lactate. The app presents the user with a series of questions about the patient and eventually presents probable explanations for the lactate level. An evaluation study was performed at the intensive care unit as the UMCG where each participant was given a set of 10 patient descriptions, and was asked to find an explanation for the elevated lactate. The evaluation study had two conditions, one where the participants were unassisted and one where the app was used to find the explanation. Afterwards the participants were given a questionnaire and a brief interview. The results have shown a significant increase in accuracy in finding the correct explanations when using the app. The participants also found the app easy and enjoyable to use and have shown interest in using such tools for training purposes and in their work, in particular to assist in more complicated cases, or in cases of doubt. With further improvement of the underlying models, these support tools can prove to valuable assets for clinicians when interpreting lactate levels.

Item Type: Thesis (Master's Thesis / Essay)
Degree programme: Human-Machine Communication
Thesis type: Master's Thesis / Essay
Language: English
Date Deposited: 15 Feb 2018 08:11
Last Modified: 15 Feb 2018 08:11
URI: https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/13728

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