Friends:
This is a key problem we need to solve: The ability to effectively navigate this space. I agree with @anthonysena that listing >400 concepts through >40 pages is not useful. This design element is just not working in such cases. And I like @Sigfried_Gold’s direction of a topological graphical display.
The problem is that our design has to deal with several problems:
- Medically meaningful relationships (like ‘Anatomical site of’) vs navigational/hierarchical relationships (‘Is a’, ‘Equivalent of’)
- One related concept/parent/child vs a few relateds/parents/children vs many many relateds/parents/children
- Non-standard vs. standard concepts, where we want to discourage the use of non-standard ones (they are not compatible with the CDMs that are ETLed from other coding schemes, we really need to wean people off those ICD9s).
I can think of a number of ways to tackle this:
- If we want a single standard navigator of things, it proboably needs to have two views simultaneously:
- An overview topological view where we are (like a dot on the US map), and
- A local view (the streets around my house in Cambridge).
- We need to have “flexible” design elements depending on the size of the topological neighborhood:
- If the result set is up to a small amount (say, 5) elements, like 1 ATC, 1 VA Class, 4 Indications, 5 ETC, just list them.
- If the result set is more than 5 put in a place holder, like “457 SPL”, “8 NDFRT”. Upon being clicked, this placeholder should provide the ability to drill down by offering a search box or filters.
- We may provide a “smart” context-sensitive navigation dependent on what we are showing. So, in case of a Metformin we know it is a drug ingredient, and for those the screen might offer several specific searches:
- “Show me drug classes for this ingredient”,
- “Show me indications for this ingredient”,
- “Show me source codes for this ingredient”,
- “Show me drug forms used with this ingredients”,
- “Show me dosages used with this ingredient”.
- is probably where we need to go eventually, since nobody will really truly manage to navigate 1) and 2), with the exception of a few hard-core orienteering experts. But it is a lot more work.
Looks like we need a design session with a large white board for this.