HARI Lab focus on the interdisciplinary research of informatics and health sciences, including mHealth, Telehealth, Health Information and Data Mining, and Web Accessibility, all toward the goal of providing better health care to the individual.
Current Research
VISYTER
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto, Andi Saptono
Doctoral Students: Wayan Pulantara, Gede Pramana
VISYTER is an interactive platform for telehealth and collaborative applications. It stands for Versatile and Integrated System for Telerehabilitation and was originally designed as a generic platform for delivering telerehabilitation services (Parmanto et al., 2010). VISYTER is designed to take into account the environments and requirements of rehabilitation services such as minimal equipment and maintenance, low cost of investment, and ease of setup and operation. VISYTER is designed to be able to adjust to different bandwidths, ranging from the very fast new generation of Internet to residential broadband connections. The software platform is suitable for supporting low-volume services to homes, yet scalable to support high-volume enterprise-wide telehealth services. The system is also designed to be open and extensible, making it possible to work with various devices and software applications to support telehealth and collaborative applications. VISYTER is also a secure, integrated system that combines high-quality videoconferencing with access to EHRs, and other key tools in telerehabilitation such as stimuli presentation, remote multiple camera control, remote control of the display screen, and an eye contact teleprompter. VISYTER is a platform for interactive collaboration that allows two or more clinicians to share program applications (such as health record system), power point presentation, and other applications while seeing each other via videoconferencing.
iMHere
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto
Doctoral Students: Gede Pramana, Agus Setiawan, Zakiy Alfikri
iMHere (internet-based Mobile Health and Rehabilitation) is a mobile platform consisting of a smartphone application and a web-based portal. The smartphone application is connected to the portal through a secure two-way communication channel. The communication channel provides a seamless store-and-forward mechanism that operates at near real-time speed. This unique feature improves the reliability of the store-and-forward mechanism by ensuring information delivery even if a connection is lost. The iMHere application consists of several mini-apps. The iMHere portal provides an interface for clinicians to remotely manage the smartphone app and to monitor the telerehabilitation services. Using the two-way connection between the smartphone and the portal, clinicians will be able to remotely review the patient’s data and provide support. At the same time, the patient can use the smartphone as an independent application.
Past Members: Daihua Yu
SmartCAT
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto
Doctoral Students: Gede Pramana
SmartCAT is an app for treating and assessing teen anxiety. The “CAT” in SmartCAT stands for Child Anxiety Treatment. Traditional clinical assessment of anxiety is limited in that it relies on the patient relaying episodes of anxiety after the episode has occurred. This type of reporting has several limitations: is highly susceptible to recall bias, and it is not effective at determining how the anxiety changes over time or in various contexts (Shiffman, 2007). Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) is a method that seeks to overcome these limitations by repeatedly sampling the patient’s anxiety, in their natural environment, as they experience their everyday lives. Similarly, Ecological Momentary Interventions (EMI) are treatments administered to patients in their natural environments as they experience their anxiety.
A Metric to Measure the Accessibility of the Web
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto, Andi Saptono
The research began with the observation of the inadequacy of methodology and measurement (metric) used by existing research. The existing practice of evaluating web accessibility uses a dichotomous method based on the absolute compliance that lead to inaccuracies. The results of previous studies are often confusing and conflicting. We proposed a novel metric for quantitatively measuring the content accessibility of the Web for persons with disabilities (Parmanto & Zeng, 2005), and developed a software called Kelvin to implement the metric. The proposed metric is intended to overcome the deficiencies of the current measurements commonly used in Web accessibility studies. Armed with the new metric, we conducted large-scale studies on web accessibility comparing an aggregate of websites of different categories, and comparing accessibility of websites over time. Instead of using only the home page (which is the case for all previous studies), we evaluated the home page and all pages in the entire sites (which may include tens of thousands of pages). Using this metric, we conducted a cross-sectional study of the accessibility of consumer health websites (Zeng & Parmanto, 2004). We also conducted a longitudinal study of Web accessibility over time (Hackett & Parmanto, 2005; Hackett, Parmanto, & Zeng, 2005).
Past Members: Xiaoming Zeng, Stephanie Hackett, Reza Ferridiansyah, Lijing Song
Past Research
ASERT
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto, Andi Saptono
PA ASERT (Autism Services Education Research and Training) Regional Centers is commited to improve regional access to quality services and interventions, provide information and support to families, train professionals in best practices and facilitate collaboration among providers of services throughout the commonwealth.
Past Members: Solehudin Al-Ayubi
Polytrauma Assistive Technology Clinic and Assistive Technology Outcome Database
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto, Andi Saptono
In collaboration with Dr. Mark Schmeler and under the current funded project from the VA, we are developing a system called Integrated Clinician Assistive Technology Workbench (ICAT-workbench). ICAT-Workbench is a comprehensive portal containing sub-portals for assistive technology (AT) review, distance education, AT standard evaluation and procedures, and teleconsultation/telementoring. The most important component of the ICAT-Workbench is a sophisticated outcome database for assistive technology (AT) services and devices. The system includes very easy to use data entry and advanced visualization of the data.
PersonA
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto
PersonA is a combination of automatic input of physical activity data, smart phone, and social networking (Ayubi & Parmanto, 2012). PersonA is designed to work on various health behavior change programs that leverage self-management and social support as the main strategies (Ayubi & Parmanto, 2012; Ding, Ayubi, Shivayogy, & Parmanto, 2012). PersonA is designed with the self-management and social support capabilities required to promote PA. Those capabilities are proposed based on analytical study of theories and models in the area of behavior change, in the intersection between behavior change and technology, and in the area of technology development. The theories in the area of behavior change include The Health Belief Model (HBM), Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) by Fishbein & Ajzen (1975, 1980), The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) by Petty & Cacciopo (1980s), Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) by Bandura (1977-2001), and Uchino’s Social Support and Physical Health Link (2006). The theories and models in the intersection between behavior change and technology include Use and Gratification Theory (UGT), Common Bond and Common Identity Theory, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by Davis and Bagozzi (1989, 1992), The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by Venkatesh et al. (2003), and Fogg Behavioral Model (FBM) (2009). The theories and models in the area of technology development include Fogg Functional Triad and Design Principle by Fogg (2003), Fogg Eight-Step Design Process by Fogg (2009), Persuasion System Design (PSD) by Oinas-Okkunen and Harjumaa (2009), and System Development Life-cycle (SDLC) with Waterfall Model and its dependence that originally proposed by Royce (1970). Technically, PersonA is implemented to intelligently and automatically receive raw PA phenomena from the sensors, calculate the data into meaningful PA information, store the information on a secure server, and show the information to the users as persuasive and real-time feedback or publish the information to a social network system (SNS) for further social support purposes. Two systems were leveraged based on PersonA, namely: SocioPedometer and PAMS Sharing Unit.
Past Members: Solehudin Al-Ayubi
CAIRN/HSTA
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto
In collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and West Virginia University, we have developed a personal health portal that contains personal health data related to obesity and diabetes risks of high school students and their families. In this project, called Community Appalachian Investigation and Research Network (CAIRN), the family health portal is connected to Facebook, the social networking site. The students and their families are able to view and update their health information, receive diabetes risk assessments, and recommended information to read. The families are also able to track their health data and risks over time, as well as compare their own data with those of the community. The role of real-world traditional social networks in social attitudes that influence health outcome has been well documented (Christakis, NJEM 2007). The groundbreaking study suggests that social effects are much stronger than people realized. These findings confirm that a significant part of an individual’s health is embedded in their social networks. Social networking sites such as Facebook include the latest technology that has changed our society. Harnessing the power of social networking and combining it with health information to improve the health of community is the goal of the research in this area.
Past Members: Solehudin Al-Ayubi
SOVAT
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto
SOVAT (Spatial OLAP Visualization and Analysis Tool) is an innovative and novel decision support system for community health assessment and environmental health tracking (Scotch & Parmanto, 2005). SOVAT combines two key technologies: On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) to provide advanced visualization and analyses for large and complex data sets. SOVAT is designed to be used for any type of numerical-spatial problem solving for community health assessment (Scotch & Parmanto, 2006). Through an easy-to-use interface, even a novice user is able to answer complex problems quickly and effortlessly. iSOVAT is the Internet-based version of SOVAT. iSOVAT is developed using the latest technologies (web services and Java Web Start) that combine the power of a regular desktop application and the flexibility of an Internet application. In iSOVAT architecture, map and complex data are treated like a web page that can be accessed from anywhere in the Internet. All data sets, including maps, are encoded in XML format that can be securely transferred over regular HTTP connection.
Past Members: Matthew Scotch, Wayan Sugiantara, Maria Paramita, Faisal Jamalail
Accessibility of Smartphone-Based Health Record Systems
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto
The issues of health record accessibility can be divided into two broad categories: semantic and presentation accessibilities. Semantic accessibility is concerned with the issues of how to make users capable of reading and understanding health record contents. Presentation accessibility is concerned with presenting the contents to make it accessible to consumers with sensory, physical, and cognitive limitations. The EHR/PHR content standards such as CCR and CCD are designed for clinicians. Our recent study found that the CCR standard terminology is too technical and cannot be understood by college students. If college students have difficulty understanding the contents, it is also likely to be difficult to understand by the general population, persons with disabilities, and persons with cognitive disabilities. Our research suggests that electronic health records and personal health records are not accessible to users with disabilities. Our earlier research on the accessibility of consumer health information (Zeng & Parmanto, 2004) found that web-based consumer health information managed by federal government and educational institutions by far were more accessible than commercial or community websites. Our recent study on the accessibility of healthcare websites found that even the websites of the most wired healthcare providers are not accessible. The studies can provide a proxy into the problems related to the accessibility of EHR.
Past Members: Daihua Yu
Improving Web Accessibility via Transcoding
Faculty: Bambang Parmanto
Transcoding is the process of adapting document contents so that they can be viewed on any of the increasingly diverse devices (such as smartphones) and by users with disabilities (such as blind users). We have developed an accessibility transcoding system called AcceSS (Accessibility through Simplification and Summarization) (Parmanto et al., 2005). Advanced transcoding, which involves simplifying the Web and summarizing the contents, requires understanding of the structure that makes up the entire webpage document. By understanding the structure, we can decide which sections of the webpage are important and therefore should be kept, and which ones are clutter and need to be discarded. Understanding the structure of a random webpage is a difficult problem. The bulk of the work in my lab has been in understanding the structure of a random document with the goal of transforming its contents into a format that is more accessible to users with disabilities as well as users of mobile devices. We proposed a novel method using a combination of pagelet feature recognition and genre-based templates. The goal of this project is to make the Web more accessible by providing some of the features naturally available to sighted users to users with visual impairments. These features are direct access and gestalt understanding, which can emerge from simplification and summarization. Simplification is achieved by retaining sections of the webpage that are considered important while removing the clutter. The purpose of summarization is to provide the users with a preview of the webpage. Simplification and summarization are implemented as a “guide dog” that helps users navigate the entire website.
Past Members: Xiaoming Zeng, Stephanie Hackett, Reza Ferrydiansyah, Andi Saptono, Haya Alkhatlan