DEVELOPER NOTES

Client-friendly reporting

I designed Opus 23 Pro to serve two user audiences: the physician who works in the development environment to generate and curate information; and the client, who represents the end-user of that information. Both have widely differing needs and points of reference. One aspect of Opus 23 Pro that I am especially proud of is the great lengths the program goes to to make its final product (the Client Report) simple, concise and easy to understand. One area that has an especially interesting and dynamic quality is the way that Opus 23 explains the actions and consequences of genes to the client.

Opus 23 Pro aggregates much of its data from public, peer-reviewed sources. This includes the descriptive text that accompanies information about genes. Typically Opus 23 grabs this information from genome.gov. However these short abstracts are often highly technical and cryptic -very unlikely to be very helpful to a patient who does not have a background in genetics. So we created an alternate database of gene descriptions specifically written for the layperson, which is used when Opus 23 Pro generates the client report.

However, even simplified gene descriptions can be somewhat technical and often rely on the reader having some form of base knowledge.

Here is a nice touch you don’t see very often. When Opus prints out the gene description in the client report it checks its internal glossary for any advanced medical concepts and if they are in the description the ‘smart owl’ will activate and give the client a simple description of the term.

csf

To avoid repeating itself endlessly, Opus only adds the glossary description to the first description that requires it. In this screen shot it is explaining what the terms ‘gene,’  ‘interleukin,’ cytokine and ‘protein’ mean.

 

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