An information visualization engine for situational-awareness in health insurance

Abstract

Nowadays the number of chronically idled patients has increased greatly because of unhealthy behaviors. Consequently, healthcare costs related to chronicle medical conditions have also increased. Health insurance players face new challenges on how to prevent disease burdens and how to contribute for a better quality of life and wellbeing for chronic patients. Keeping these patients aware about events requiring their immediate attention assumes therefore a key relevance, contributing simultaneously to promote an active participation of healthcare professionals in monitoring the health status and wellbeing of each chronic patient. This paper presents an information visualization engine for situational-awareness as a way to proactively monitor unhealthy risk behaviors. A metadata model was designed following a user-centric approach and addressing information visualization requirements to streamline the visual representation of events in a collaborative decision making environment. The paper presents the outcomes of a prototype configured to demonstrate how the proposed model can be applied in health insurance field.