Supporting regional pandemic management by enabling self-service reporting-A case report

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a need for better collaboration among research, care, and management in Germany as well as globally. Initially, there was a high demand for broad data collection across Germany, but as the pandemic evolved, localized data became increasingly necessary. Customized dashboards and tools were rapidly developed to provide timely and accurate information. In Saxony, the DISPENSE project was created to predict short-term hospital bed capacity demands, and while it was successful, continuous adjustments and the initial monolithic system architecture of the application made it difficult to customize and scale.

METHODS

To analyze the current state of the DISPENSE tool, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the data processing steps and identified data flows underlying users' metrics and dashboards. We also conducted a workshop to understand the different views and constraints of specific user groups, and brought together and clustered the information according to content-related service areas to determine functionality-related service groups. Based on this analysis, we developed a concept for the system architecture, modularized the main services by assigning specialized applications and integrated them into the existing system, allowing for self-service reporting and evaluation of the expert groups' needs.

RESULTS

We analyzed the applications' dataflow and identified specific user groups. The functionalities of the monolithic application were divided into specific service groups for data processing, data storage, predictions, content visualization, and user management. After composition and implementation, we evaluated the new system architecture against the initial requirements by enabling self-service reporting to the users.

DISCUSSION

By modularizing the monolithic application and creating a more flexible system, the challenges of rapidly changing requirements, growing need for information, and high administrative efforts were addressed.

CONCLUSION

We demonstrated an improved adaptation towards the needs of various user groups, increased efficiency, and reduced burden on administrators, while also enabling self-service functionalities and specialization of single applications on individual service groups.

Modeling of Complex Human-Process Interaction as Framework for Assistance and Supervisory Control of Technical Processes

Interactive processes are omnipresent in fields dealing with automation of complex technical processes, allowing a wide range of application scenarios of assistance systems to support human operators. However, the definition and description of the interaction strongly depends on the application. The description of Human-Process-Interaction (HPI) in most cases is the key for the development of interaction models leading to a framework for the development of assistance systems. The goal of such assistance systems is to support human operators, or human factors, and thereby improve the considered process in parallel. For the purpose of creating a framework for the development of assistance systems, the Situation-Operator-Model (SOM) approach is applied. The SOM approach is capable of modeling HPI in a net-like structure representing the complex environment (or process) and human interactions. By this formal modeling of HPI for the development of human-centered assistance systems based on the underlying modeled interaction is available. In this contribution illustrative examples of different applications for the proposed approach are given by a cognitive, individualized driver assistance system for lane changing maneuvers, by the assessment of operator decisions in air traffic control as well as the operator supervision in semi-automated production process.