Entries tagged with house calls - Channel 10

Microsoft Research: A look at tomorrow's health solutions today - part II

Laura — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:15:00 GMT

In this special two-part video edition of House Calls for Healthcare Professionals, Bill Crounse, MD, visits with researchers at Microsoft Research. Each program reviews three promising areas of research that may one day lead to solutions with a direct or indirect application to health and healthcare. Viewers will gain insight to advanced ideas and technologies now in the labs at Microsoft Research long before they find their way into future products, solutions, or applications.

HIV Research, Visualization

One of the enduring challenges in HIV vaccine design is the remarkable rate of viral mutation and adaptation, which limits the immune system’s ability to mount a lasting, effective response. The HIV group at Microsoft Research is developing models of evolution that allow researchers to identify and visualize the complex, yet encouragingly consistent, patterns of adaptation that suggest novel vaccine strategies.

http://research.microsoft.com/research/eScience/

•David Heckerman, M.D. Ph.D.

Senior Directior, eScience Research Group

•Jonathan Carlson

Researcher

DynaVis Data Visualization

DynaVis is an information visualization toolkit that provides several extensions to business (or perhaps even clinical) charting, including animated transitions between data and between different views of data. The animated transitions help users stay in context when complex changes occur, making it easier for them to perform their tasks.

http://csdl2.computer.org/persagen/DLAbsToc.jsp?resourcePath=/dl/trans/tg/&toc=comp/trans/tg/2007/06/v6toc.xml&DOI=10.1109/TVCG.2007.70539

http://research.microsoft.com/vibe/projects/dynavis.aspx

•George Robertson, Ph.D.

Principal Researcher

Muscle-Computer Interface

Microsoft researcher Desney Tan and his team are working to create interfaces called muscle-computer interfaces, or MuCIs. that sense gestural input directly from muscle activity. This research may one day lead to new modalities for computer screen navigation and data input.

http://research.microsoft.com/cue/MuCI/.

http://research.microsoft.com/~desney
http://research.microsoft.com/cue

•Scott Saponas

Intern

Microsoft Research: A look at tomorrow’s health solutions today: Part I

Laura — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:23:00 GMT

A special thanks to Dr. Eric Horvitz, MSR Area Manager, for his assistance in the production of this program.

Part 1

Situated Interaction

The Situated Interaction project at Microsoft Research aims to enable a new generation of interactive systems that can reason about their surroundings and embed interaction deeply into the natural flow of everyday tasks, activities, and collaborations. As an initial sample challenge in this space, researchers are currently developing a situated conversational agent that can act as a Microsoft front-desk receptionist (for example, make shuttle reservations, register visitors, and provide campus information). The system integrates a large number of artificial intelligence technologies—such as speech recognition and language understanding, face detection and tracking, intention recognition, engagement, and behavioral modeling—in a conversational framework that allows it to engage in mixed-initiative, natural language interaction with one participant or multiple participants.

http://msrweb/adapt/SituatedInteraction

•Dan Bohus, Ph.D.

Researcher

Gaze Tracking

Eye-tracking technology can be used to understand how people interact with information—for instance, search results and Web pages and perform other information processing tasks. This information can then be used to design new ways of interacting with computers in which the machine recognizes what people look at and better understands what they pay attention to in order to respond accordingly.

http://research.microsoft.com/~cutrell/

Cutrell, E., and Z. Guan. 2007. “What are you looking for? An eye-tracking study of information usage in Web search.” In Proceedings of CHI'07, Human Factors in Computing Systems (San Jose, CA), ACM Press, 407-416.

Guan, Z., and E. Cutrell. 2007. “An eye-tracking study of the effect of target rank on Web search.” In Proceedings of CHI'07, Human Factors in Computing Systems (San Jose, CA), ACM Press, 417-420.

•Ed Cutrell, Ph.D.

Researcher

Big Top

“FourBySix” is a large, 4-foot by 6-foot (standing height) surface computer that Microsoft researchers recently prototyped to explore productivity scenarios and applications involving small groups of users meeting face to face. For example, one use would be to support groups of designers who are combining and reviewing images, allowing them to sketch new designs in a collaborative setting.

•Andy Wilson, Ph.D.

Researcher

Microsoft Research: “Innovations in Data Input and Navigation”

Laura — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:04:00 GMT

18 months ago, House Calls for Healthcare Professionals showed viewers something from Microsoft Research called “Play Anywhere”; a technology that allowed users to manipulate images projected on a table with nothing more than their hands. That technology has since been commercialized and is now called Surface Computing. It’s showing up in retail centers and casinos, and perhaps one day in your home or doctor’s office.

In this edition of House Calls, Dr. Bill Crounse revisits the creative geniuses at Microsoft Research to take a look at InkSeine and Lucidtouch, data input and screen navigation tools that might one day help clinicians and other people around the world work more efficiently.

A Pediatric Hospital Bedside Patient Entertainment & Education System: Microsoft Media Center + Xbox

bcrounse — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:54:00 GMT

Arkansas Children’s Hospital

Every so often I come across organizations and people that truly blow me away. Pediatric hospitals have always been known for innovative ideas in the care of their young patients. So, it comes as no surprise that a pediatric hospital would rise to the occasion to better meet the entertainment and education needs of their "customers". But you just have to love it when a truly dedicated clinical and IT staff put their heads together and come up with a solution that is truly best in class.

That is exactly what has happened at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. ACH is based in Little Rock. It is the only full-service children's hospital in the state. The staff at ACH decided it was time to replace the hospital's aging in-room television system with something a little more contemporary. At first, they looked at systems that might typically be found in good hotels. However, they soon discovered that these systems were too expensive, too inflexible, and too limiting for what they really wanted to accomplish. They wanted a system that would provide their young patients with a full spectrum of on-demand movies, television, Internet, video gaming, and patient education. They also wanted a highly flexible platform on which they could provide other services now and well into the future. Finally, they wanted complete control over the system and its attributes that could be fine-tuned to meet the age-appropriate needs of patients, their friends and family. When they didn't find what they needed on the open market at a price they could afford, they decided to build it themselves.

The solution they came up with uses Microsoft Media Center, Xbox 360, and SQL Server. It extends the hospital's IT infrastructure out to the patient's bedside. Patients access the system through a custom designed interface on a 15-inch flat screen monitor next to the bed. This set-up lends itself to easy cleaning between patients. The monitor also becomes a kind of "command-central" for doctors and nurses who want to access a patient's electronic record or review x-rays and other data with the patient in his or her room. Movies, games, educational videos, Internet access, e-mail, messaging, etc. are viewed on a 32-inch LCD screen mounted on the wall across from the bed.

Home screen to the bedside entertainment and education system at Arkansas Children's Hospital based on Microsoft Media Center

Yesterday, I recorded one of my House Calls audio-casts with the staff at ACH. That program will be posted on my House Call's site on Microsoft.com within the next few days. In the meantime, I just couldn't wait to tell you about this. Although the solution has just finished a limited pilot, the decision has already been made to roll it out hospital-wide. One of the highlights of my audio-cast was interviewing a 16 year-old young man who is a frequent patient at ACH. To hear his excitement about using the new bedside entertainment and education system at ACH was reward in itself. He said the system is totally awesome in helping him stay in touch with school, friends and family during extended hospital stays. His doctor has used the bedside monitor to review test results with him. And the TV, movies and Xbox games are way cool!

Custom user interface that controls entertainment and education options as displayed on a 15-inch flatscreen monitor at the patient's bedside

Congratulations to ACH Chief Technology Officer, David Higginson, and his staff. This is just one of more than 400 clinical and business solutions this team has built at Arkansas Children's Hospital in the last five years alone. I met David a while back when he visited us here at Microsoft in Redmond. It was evident then that he and his team were up to some amazing work. My thanks also are extended to Penny Ward, RN, for sharing her enthusiasm about the bedside solution at ACH. And, my very special thanks go to Christopher Holstead, the 16 year-old patient at ACH, for sharing his thoughts about the new bedside entertainment and education system.

Be watching here on HealthBlog for more information when my House Calls’ audio-cast with Arkansas Children’s Hospital goes live on the Net.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft

The Mobile Clinical Assistant: A new category in Tablet PC’s for Healthcare

Laura — Thu, 17 May 2007 01:17:00 GMT

Over the past few years Microsoft partner, Motion Computing, has focused on serving the healthcare industry. In February at HIMSS, the company introduced an entirely new category of Tablet PC: the Mobile Clinical Assistant, also known as the C5. In March, Motion introduced a new full-sized Tablet PC, the LE1700, that not only has a touch screen but is fully capable of running Windows Vista with Aero glass graphics.

In this special video edition of House Calls for Healthcare Professionals, Microsoft's worldwide health director, Dr. Bill Crounse, and his special guests take a look at these exciting new Tablet PCs from Motion Computing and discuss how these devices are being used by clinicians around the world.

Joel French, is Vice President of the Health and Life Sciences group for Motion Computing, Inc. Mr. French is a leader in wireless products and services designed for mobile professionals in vertical industries.

Dr. Michael Blum, is Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, a practicing Cardiologist, and Chief Medical Information Officer for the University of California San Francisco Medical Center.