Haihan Lin

Haihan Lin, Derya Akbaba, Miriah Meyer et al.

The trouble with data is that it frequently provides only an imperfect representation of a phenomenon of interest. Experts who are familiar with their datasets will often make implicit, mental corrections when analyzing a dataset, or will be cautious not to be over-confident in any findings if caveats are present. However, the implicit knowledge about the caveats of a dataset are typically not collected in a structured way, which is problematic especially when teams work together who might have knowledge about different aspects of a dataset. In this work, we define such analyst's knowledge about datasets as data hunches. We discuss the implications of data hunches and propose a set of techniques for recording and communicating data hunches through data visualization. Furthermore, we provide guidelines for designing visualizations that support recording and visualizing data hunches. We envision that data hunches will empower analysts to externalize their knowledge, facilitate collaboration and communication, and support the ability to learn from others' data hunches.

Haihan Lin, Ryan A. Metcalf, Jack Wilburn et al.

Blood transfusion is a frequently performed medical procedure in surgical and nonsurgical contexts. Although it is frequently necessary or even life-saving, it has been identified as one of the most overused procedures in hospitals. Unnecessary transfusions not only waste resources but can also be detrimental to patient outcomes. Patient blood management (PBM) is the clinical practice of optimizing transfusions and associated outcomes. In this paper, we introduce Sanguine, a visual analysis tool for transfusion data and related patient medical records. Sanguine was designed with two user groups in mind: PBM experts and clinicians who conduct transfusions. PBM experts use Sanguine to explore and analyze transfusion practices and its associated medical outcomes. They can compare individual surgeons, or compare outcomes or time periods, such as before and after an intervention regarding transfusion practices. PBM experts then curate and annotate views for communication with clinicians, with the goal of improving their transfusion practices. Such a review session could be in person or through a shared link. We validate the utility and effectiveness of Sanguine through case studies.