A knowledge Graph-Based User Interface to Support Healthcare Providers in Health Crisis Management during Pandemics

Abstract

Beginning in early 2020, the Covid-19 virus spread over the planet and was labelled as a biological catastrophe, which led the healthcare crisis management to face a variety of challenges. The field of healthcare crisis management, also known as disaster operations management, consists of four different stages: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. During the response stage of a pandemic, the utilisation of information technology can assist decision-making by providing visual representations of relevant information in a comprehensible manner for decision-makers. In the context of a pandemic, it is important for decision makers to take into account data from diverse sources, which may be presented in either a structured or unstructured format. In order to support healthcare decision-making during pandemics, this research investigated the design of a knowledge graph-based interface by adopting the design science research approach by reviewing available literature and gathering information from different healthcare institutions. The interface prototype resulting from the proposed architecture design was implemented and tested in a real-world scenario involving personnel allocation planning at the Corona test centre located at Canton Hospital Aarau. The proposed concept from this study demonstrates that a knowledge graph-based interface with a knowledge graph serving as a data factory could integrate data from diverse data sources and display them in a way that is comprehensible to end users.