Medical Sensemaking with Entity Workspace

Abstract

Knowledge workers making sense of a topic divide their time among activities including searching for information, reading, and taking notes. We have built a software system that supports and integrates these activities. To test its effectiveness, we conducted a study where subjects used it to perform medical question-answering tasks. Initial results indicate that subjects could use the system, but that the nature of this use depended on the subject’s overall question-answering strategy. Two dominant strategies emerged that we call the Reader and Searcher strategies