David Forslund [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > And graphs are far from everything, but are nice to have for > certain applications.
For anything to do with population health, they are essential. And Dynamic, clickable graphs as Andrew has done are even better (the only reservation being that few people use the latest versions of Mozilla, but that is only a reservation, not a fatal flaw). > I do believe that we shouldn't have physicians > building web pages. Huh? Surely the aim is to have all clinicians building the information displays, representations and data capture systems they require, using sophisticated tools which help them properly structure that information (eg openEHR) and tools which eliminate the need for arcane knowledge of programming languages. The new batch of clinicians are beginning to embrace their role as knowledge workers and informaticians. Not as programmers, sure, but the need for programming is a transitional annoyance... The most important things when building a graph are a) understanding of the underlying domain concepts; b) understanding of the use of aggregate data c) understanding of quantitative graph design principles. Physicians vs programmers: Physicians win a) and increasingly b) (with the rise of evidence-based medicine and training in epidemiology and biostatistics). Both hopeless at c)- but nearly everyone is (my own group included as we have found out when we actually tested comprehension of some of our graphs with the intended audience - ouch!). Physicians vs computer scientists: Physicians win a), CS probably win b) And maybe c) - depends on their background. But computer scientists engaged in day-to-day information work as opposed to academic research are thin on the ground. And all generalities are by definition wrong for many instances. Tim C
