Formalizing a Conceptual Framework of Work Domain Knowledge

Background: The failure rate of health information systems is high, partially due to fragmented, incomplete, or incorrect identification and description of specific and critical domain requirements. In order to systematically transform the requirements of work into real information system, an explicit conceptual framework is essential to summarize the work requirements and guide system design. Recently, Butler, Zhang, and colleagues proposed a conceptual framework called Work Domain Ontology (WDO) to formally represent users’ work. This WDO approach has been successfully demonstrated in a real world design project on aircraft scheduling. However, as a top level conceptual framework, this WDO has not defined an explicit and well specified schema (WDOS) , and it does not have a generalizable and operationalized procedure that can be easily applied to develop WDO. Moreover, WDO has not been developed for any concrete healthcare domain. These limitations hinder the utility of WDO in real world information system in general and in health information system in particular. Objective: The objective of this research is to formalize the WDOS, operationalize a procedure to develop WDO, and evaluate WDO approach using Self-Nutrition Management (SNM) work domain. Method: Concept analysis was implemented to formalize WDOS. Focus group interview was conducted to capture concepts in SNM work domain. Ontology engineering methods were adopted to model SNM WDO. Part of the concepts under the primary goal “staying healthy” for SNM were selected and transformed into a semi-structured survey to evaluate the acceptance, explicitness, completeness, consistency, experience dependency of SNM WDO. Result: Four concepts, “goal, operation, object and constraint”, were identified and formally modeled in WDOS with definitions and attributes. 72 SNM WDO concepts under primary goal were selected and transformed into semi-structured survey questions. The evaluation indicated that the major concepts of SNM WDO were accepted by 41 overweight subjects. SNM WDO is generally independent of user domain experience but partially dependent on SNM application experience. 23 of 41 paired concepts had significant correlations. Two concepts were identified as ambiguous concepts. 8 extra concepts were recommended towards the completeness of SNM WDO. Conclusion: The preliminary WDOS is ready with an operationalized procedure. SNM WDO has been developed to guide future SNM application design. This research is an essential step towards Work-Centered Design (WCD).

A case-comparison interview study of brain tumors and employment in occupations with presumed electric and magnetic field exposures

Results from epidemiologic studies suggest that persons working in occupations with presumed electric and magnetic field (EMF) exposures are at increased risk of brain cancer. This study utilized data from a completed, population-based, interview case-control study of central nervous system (CNS) tumors and employment in the petrochemical industry to test the hypothesis that employment in EMF-related occupations increases CNS tumor risk. A total of 375 male residents of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Area, age 20 to 79, with primary neuroglial CNS tumors diagnosed during the period 1980-84 were identified. A population-based comparison group of 450 age, race and geographically matched males was selected. Occupational histories and potential risk factor data were collected via personal interviews with study subjects or their next-of-kin.^ Adjusted odds ratios were less than 1.0 for persons ever employed in an electrical occupation (OR = 0.65; 95% CI = 0.40-1.09) or whose usual occupation was electrical (OR = 0.76; 95% CI = 0.33-1.73). Relative risk estimates did not increase significantly as time since first employment or duration of employment increased. Examination of CNS tumor risk by high (OR = 0.80), medium (OR = 0.88) and low (OR = 0.45) exposure categories for persons whose usual occupation was electrical did not indicate a dose-response pattern. In addition, the mean age of exposed cases was not significantly younger than that for unexposed cases. Analysis of risk by probability of exposure to EMFs showed non-significant elevations in the adjusted odds ratio for definite exposed workers defined by their usual occupation (OR = 1.78; 95% CI = 0.70-4.51) and ever/never employed status (OR = 1.54; 95% CI = 0.17-4.91).^ These findings suggest that employment in occupations with presumed EMF exposures does not increase CNS tumor risk as was suggested by previous investigations. The results of this study also do not support the EMF-tumor promotion hypothesis. ^