Summary
Objectives: Electronic medical record systems permit collection of large amounts of medical information.
Usually, information is presented in a fixed format, either as text or tables. Health
care providers have to navigate this fixed format in order to find information useful
for a specific patient-provider interaction. The main objective of this work was to
allow the provider immediate access to specific laboratory information through the
development of a highly customizable, graphical user interface to the Mayo Clinic
laboratory information system.
Methods – Results: Here we describe this platform-independent, World-Wide-Web-based graphical user interface
that allows the provider to see all or a predetermined panel of essential laboratory
data in graphical format. Advantages include availability at internet-based workstations,
immediate recognition of trends over time, ability to zoom in and out of specific
periods of time, and detailed analysis of patient values in relationship to normal
values.
Conclusions: Web browser-based user interface allowing graphical display of laboratory data using
Java technology was described. The connection to the Mayo Clinic laboratory information
system combines cross-platform support for use on virtually any networked machine,
interaction through a Web browser for ease of use, and a combination of the Perl and
Java languages for powerful data processing and interactivity.
Keywords
WWW - graphical user interfaces - laboratory data - medical database
