The Scatter of Healthcare Information

The rapid development of huge sources of information in online domains like healthcare, coupled with powerful search engines, suggests that finding comprehensive information about a topic is straightforward. However, recent studies show that, while novices can easily find information for questions that have specific answers (e.g. What is a melanoma?), they have difficulty in finding answers for questions requiring a comprehensive understanding of a topic (e.g. What are the risk and prevention factors for melanoma?). This talk presents results which suggest that an important explanation for the difficulty of finding comprehensive information is the phenomenon of information scatter: as the number of information sources about a specific topic increases, the information across the sources begins to follow a Zipf-like distribution, where a few sources have a large amount of information, and many sources have very little information. These results motivate the need for systems, interfaces, and training that are "distribution conscious", to assist users in finding comprehensive information about a topic. The talk concludes with the design and evaluation of a portal called the Strategy Hub, which specifically addresses the problem of information scatter in the healthcare domain.

About the Speaker

Suresh K. Bhavnani, PhD

Suresh Bhavnani, PhD, is Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the Institute for Translational Sciences (ITS) at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Dr. Bhavnani holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Biomedical Informatics at UT Houston. He specializes in network visualization and analysis of biomedical data, with translation to the design of decision-support systems.