Interactive Systems for Healthcare (IS4H)
Research Lab
The IS4H Lab is led by Dr. Aleksandra Sarcevic, a Professor in the College of Computing & Informatics (CCI) at Drexel University. Our research is at the cross-section of human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), and medical informatics. As researchers, we are committed to an in-depth study of medical processes, errors, communication, work coordination, and collaboration among healthcare providers. As designers, we experiment with the latest technologies and interaction techniques to design and develop interactive systems that support medical work and improve patient outcomes. Our collaborators and partners include physicians, surgeons, and nurses at several regional hospitals, including Children’s National in Washington DC and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as well as academics and researchers at other institutions. Our research has been supported through grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ).
News & Updates
Kathryn Chang, presenting a poster at the 2024 Discovery Day on November 7, 2024 in Philadelphia, PA.
IS4H Lab @ 2024 Discovery Day
November 2024: Shout out to Kathryn Chang, a second year medical student in our lab, who successfully presented her research poster at this year's Drexel University College of Medicine Discovery Day. The poster was based on her summer project funded through a College of Medicine Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship. The project focused on identifying factors contributing to personal protective equipment (PPE) noncompliance in critical care settings.
ACM Group 2025 Paper Acceptance
October 2024: Our paper on using activity theory to study teamwork delays during time-critical medical interventions was accepted to ACM Group 2025. Congrats to Katie Zellner, who led the study, and the rest of the team! Katie will be presenting the paper at the upcoming conference in January 2025!
In related news, Katie was also accepted to the ACM Group 2025 Doctoral Consortium! Yay, congratulations!
Angela Mastrianni at her PhD Dissertation Defense with the committee members on June 3, 2024 (left) and with her advisor, Dr. Sarcevic at the CCI Commencement ceremony on June 13, 2024 at the Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA (right).
Dissertation Defense & Graduation!
September 2024: We are so proud of Dr. Angela Mastrianni, who successfully defended and completed her PhD Dissertation research this summer! Thank you also to her committee members - Drs. Afsaneh Razi, Jina Huh-Yoo, Christopher MacLellan, and Krzysztof Gajos - for invaluable support! Angela is starting her postdoc position with the HiBRID Lab at NYU Langone Health - best of luck and we can't wait to see all the big things you will achieve next!
Jonathan Stein (left) and Emily Ernst (right) presenting their summer research work at the 2024 STAR Scholars Schowcase, Philadelphia, PA, August 29, 2024.
IS4H Lab @ 2024 STAR Scholars Showcase
August 2024: Two of our undergraduate research assistants presented their work at the 2024 STAR Scholars Showcase at Drexel University. Jonathan Stein worked with the researchers from DUCoM's Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy on new therapeutic approaches for spinal cord injury and Emily Ernst worked with our lab on eliciting requirements for designing new dynamic features on the digital checklist for trauma resuscitation.
IS4H Lab @ ACM CHI 2024
May 2024: We have several papers and presentations at CHI 2024! Katie Zellner will present her case study on the challenges in designing visual alerts that represent delays and complex concepts in time-critical medical events. Angela Mastrianni will present her 2023 ToCHI Journal paper on transitioning cognitive aids into decision support platforms. Angela will also present her MSR internship work from last summer at the CHI 2024 Sensemaking Workshop.
New NIH Grant to Improve PPE Compliance among HCWs
September 2023: Our team just received a new R01 award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering!! This award will allow us to continue our work on using AI to detect PPE noncompliance among the healthcare workers in resuscitation settings and remind them to correct their PPE. Check out this nice write-up about the research on Drexel News Blog!
July 2023: Our paper on checklist compliance during pediatric resuscitations got accepted to AMIA 2023 Annual Symposium! In this study, we examined how different resuscitation tasks and their attributes such as length, complexity, and number of people involved, affected checklist compliance. The symposium will be held in New Orleans in November and Angela Mastrianni will be presenting the paper in person!
June 2023: Congratulations to Angela Mastrianni for being selected as a Research intern at Microsoft Research New England - Health Futures Team! Good luck with your internship Angela!
Vidhi Shah presenting at the first annual Week of Undergraduate Excellence Quick Pitch Competition.
IS4H Lab @ 2023 Annual Week of Undergraduate Excellence
May 2023: Shout out to Vidhi Shah, our undergraduate research assistant, for her placement in the Quick Pitch Competition finals during the 2023 Annual Week of Undergraduate Excellence at Drexel University.
IS4H Lab @ ACM DIS 2023
May 2023: Pittsburgh, here we come!! Our lab will present three papers at the ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) in Pittsburgh, PA (July 10-14):
(1) a full paper on supporting awareness of dynamic data within clinical checklists (lead author Angela), (2) a work-in-progress paper on supporting decisions about stopping life-saving interventions (lead author Angela), and (3) another work-in-progress paper on designing a computer-aided monitoring and alerting system to improve PPE compliance among healthcare workers (lead author Dr. Sarcevic).
Angela also got selected for participation in the DIS 2023 Doctoral Consortium!!
ACM CSCW 2023 Paper Acceptance!
May 2023: Katie's paper, titled "Understanding Delay Awareness and Mitigation Mechanisms through an Iterative Design and Evaluation of a Prototype Alert System for Complex Teamwork," got accepted to PACM HCI - CSCW Track. The paper will be presented at the upcoming ACM CSCW 2023 conference in Minneapolis, MN in October! It's been almost three years since we started this project and we are super excited to see it out soon!
March 2023: Congratulations to Katie Zellner for being selected as a UX intern at Initium Health! Good luck with your internship Katie!
Angela presenting her research paper at ACM Group 2022/23.
IS4H Lab @ ACM Group 2022/23
January 2023: Congrats to Angela for successfully presenting her paper at ACM Group 2022/23 and participating in the Doctoral Consortium. The paper, titled "Alerts as coordination mechanisms: Implications for designing alerts for multidisciplinary and shared decision making," was published in PACMHCI, Volume 6, Issue GROUP in January 2022.
December 2022: Two new papers led by Angela Mastrianni got accepted for publication: (1) a case study accepted to ACM CHI 2023 on using video-based, near-live simulations as an alternative simulation approach for evaluating new technologies, and (2) a journal paper accepted to ACM ToCHI on transitioning cognitive aids like checklists into decision support platforms.
IS4H Lab @ PhillyCHI
November 2022: Angela's research was featured at PhillyCHI's World Usability Day. This year's theme was "Our Health" and Angela presented about her research on cognitive aids for dynamic medical settings.
September 2022: NEW research grant alert!! We are excited to announce that the NIH NBIB awarded our team an R56 grant (the high priority, short-term project award) to jumpstart our effort in designing a video-based system that monitors healthcare workers for the appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Vidhi Shah and Channacy Un in front of their STAR Scholar Posters on August 25, 2022.
STAR Scholar Presentations
August 2022: Shout out to our two STAR Scholars - Vidhi Shah and Channacy Un - who spent the summer in our lab, contributing great research ideas and insights! On August 25, they each gave a poster presentation at the STAR Scholars Summer Showcase.
June 2022: Congrats to Katie Zellner and her team of medical students (Jio Villegas and Charles Neff) on AMIA 2022 paper acceptance! The paper is titled "An analysis of speech during life-saving interventions to inform the design of a computerized system for delay detection" and Katie will be presenting it live at the AMIA 2022 Symposium in November in Washington, DC!
May 2022: Best of luck to Angela Mastrianni as she leaves for the West coast to start her summer internship with the Chan Zuckerberg Inititative (CZI)! Have a productive summer, Angela!!
May 2022: Congratulations to Katie Zellner on winning the Graduate College Outstanding Mentorship Award! Well deserved!! Thanks to all our research assistants and mentees who submitted their nominations!
May 2022: Congratulations to Angela Mastrianni on receiving the CCI College Award for PhD Excellence in Research! Well deserved!!
Aleister Saunders, PhD, Executive Vice Provost for Research and Innovation (left) presenting the third place award for virtual research poster presentation to PhD student in Information Science, Hua Cui (right), at Graduate Student Day on June 1, 2022. (Photo credit: Drexel University)
DEGS 2022 Awards!
April 2022: Congrats to Katie Zellner on winning the Provost’s Award for Best In-Person Oral Research Presentation at the the 2022 Drexel Emerging Graduate Scholars Conference! Congrats also to Hua Cui on winning the Third Place Virtual Research Poster Presentation at DEGS!
February 2022: Congrats Angela Mastrianni and Hua Cui on CHI 2022 Late-Breaking Work acceptance! The title of this short paper is "Pop-Up Alerts are the Bane of My Existence": Designing Alerts on Cognitive Aids Used in Time-Critical Medical Settings." Best of luck to Angela as she travels to New Orleans in April, for her first CHI (and in-person) conference!
October 2021: Shout out to Lauren Chung, Charless Neff, and Alex Lee, our medical students, who presented the research they've conducted in our lab at DUCOM's Discovery (Research) Day on October 21, 2021!
September 2021: Welcome Hua Cui! Hua is joining our research lab as a freshly addmitted PhD student to the Information Science PhD Program! Hua was previously at Syracuse Universty, where she received her MS in Information Management.
September 2021: CSCW paper acceptance! We are excited to see this paper finally accepted after several resubmissions and major revisions!! The paper, titled "A Speech-Based Model for Tracking the Progression of Activities in Extreme Action Teamwork," will be published in the April 2022 CSCW Issue of PACM HCI, and will be presented at the ACM CSCW 2022 conference in November 2022.
September 2021: Group 2022/23 paper acceptance! Congrats to Angela Mastrianni and Lynn Almengor! The paper, titled "Eliciting Requirements for Decision Support Alerts in Teams with Shared Leadership" will be published in the Group issue of PACM HCI in January 2022.
CSCW 2021 Poster Acceptance!
July 2021: Congrats to Katie Zellner and co-authors on the CSCW 2021 Poster acceptance! The poster will be virtually presented at the CSCW 2021 conference in October 2021.
MobileHCI Late-Breaking Work Acceptance!
June 2021: Congrats to our undergraduate research assistant Dolma Sherpa and her mentor Angela Mastrianni for getting this short paper accepted to MobileHCI 2021! Dolma's excellent 1-min teaser for the paper (titled "Exploring the Design of Streaming Data Interfaces for Emergency Medical Contexts") is starting at 13.11 mins in this video.
DIS 2021 Paper Acceptance!
April 2021: Congrats to Angela Mastrianni and all co-authors on DIS 2021 paper acceptance! The paper is titled "Designing Interactive Alerts to Improve Recognition of Critical Events in Medical Emergencies."
CHI 2021 Case Study Acceptance!
December 2020: Congrats to Angela Mastrianni and Leah (Kulp) Hamlin on the CHI 2021 Case Study acceptance. In this case study, titled "Transitioning to Remote User-Centered Design Activities in the Emergency Medical Field During a Pandemic," we describe how we successfully transitioned all of our in-person, user-centered research activities to virtual environments when the Covid-19 pandemic started.
Zoom screenshot of virtual attendees during Swathi Jagannath's dissertation defense on December 20, 2020.
Dissertation Defense!
December 2020: Congratulations to Dr. Swathi Jagannath for successfully defending her dissertation, titled "Perception, Communication, and Representation of Activity Delays in Dynamic Medical Teamwork!" Thank you also to committee Yunan Chen, Andrea Forte, Michelle Rogers, and Kenton O'Hara on their feedback! It's been a wonderful and fun "research" ride for the past 4.5 years!!
September 2020: Welcome Katie Zellner! Katie was previously at Johns Hopkins University, where she received her Master in Public Health (MPH). She is joining our research lab as the first year Information Science PhD student!
Zoom screenshot of virtual attendees during Leah Kulps' dissertation defense on June 2, 2020.
Dissertation Defense!
June 2020: Congratulations to Dr. Leah Kulp for successfully defending her dissertation research, titled "Towards an Adaptive, Context-aware Checklist for Concurrent Use in Dynamic Medical Settings." Thank you also to the committee members - Andrea Forte, Erin Solovey, Helena Mentis, and Nadir Weibel for their support! It was wonderful to see all the "guests" at this virtual defense!!
September 2019: Welcome Angela Mastrianni! Angela previously worked for three years as a full-stack software engineer in the asset management division of Goldman Sachs. She recevied her BA in Computer Science from Bryn Mawr College. Angela is joining our lab as the first year student in the Information Science PhD program.
Leah Kulp (left), lead author of the study, discusses the digital checklist design with Drs. Randall Burd (center) and Aleksandra Sarcevic (right) at a research meeting in Philadelphia, PA on April 24, 2019.
We've Got Some Media Coverage!
May 2019: Nice media coverage in PhillyVoice of our latest research on the effects of using digital checklist during pediatric trauma resuscitation.