Medical Data Visualization Concepts

For Educational and Brainstorming Use Only

This document outlines potential tools that could use AI (like WebLLM) to transform unstructured “rambling” clinical thoughts into structured, beautiful visualizations. These tools would be designed for educational purposes, study aids, or organizing complex cases, strictly avoiding PHI.

1. HPI Timeline Generator

The Problem: Histories often come out non-linear (e.g., “He has pain today, but it actually started 3 weeks ago, oh and he had a similar episode last year”). The Solution: An AI tool that extracts temporal events and plots them chronologically.

  • Input: “Patient presents with worsening cough. Started 2 weeks ago as dry cough. 5 days ago developed fever. Saw PCP 2 days ago, got antibiotics. Today coughing up blood.”
  • Visual Output: A horizontal timeline showing the sequence of events relative to “Day 0” (Admission/Consult).
  • Tech: Mermaid.js timeline or gantt charts.

2. Differential Diagnosis Mind Map

The Problem: Medical students and residents often struggle to organize a broad differential diagnosis or “anchor” too early. The Solution: A tool that takes a chief complaint and key symptoms and generates a branching mind map of potential causes, categorized by system (VINDICATE).

  • Input: “Young female with acute RLQ pain, nausea, no fever, LMP 6 weeks ago.”
  • Visual Output: A central node “RLQ Pain” branching into “GI” (Appendicitis), “GYN” (Ectopic, Ovarian Torsion), “GU” (Stone).
  • Tech: Mermaid.js mindmap.

3. Family Pedigree Creator

The Problem: Drawing family trees for genetics or complex family history is tedious and hard to format in text notes. The Solution: Converts a narrative family history into a structured genogram-style chart.

  • Input: “Proband is a 30yo female. Mother died of Breast CA at 45. Maternal aunt also had Breast CA at 50. Maternal grandmother died of Ovarian CA.”
  • Visual Output: A hierarchical tree diagram with standard shapes (Circles/Squares) representing the lineage and affected status.
  • Tech: Mermaid.js graph TD (using specific shapes/styles) or a custom SVG generator.

4. Pathophysiology “Mechanism” Mapper

The Problem: Explaining complex disease mechanisms or drug actions to learners (or patients) is difficult with just words. The Solution: Visualizes the causal chain of a disease or drug mechanism.

  • Input: “Heart failure reduces cardiac output. This activates the sympathetic nervous system and RAAS. RAAS activation leads to sodium retention and vasoconstriction, which worsens the heart failure.”
  • Visual Output: A flow diagram with arrows showing the “Vicious Cycle” or feedback loops.
  • Tech: Mermaid.js graph TD or stateDiagram.

5. “Evidence Pyramid” Builder

The Problem: When discussing a treatment plan, it’s helpful to visualize the quality of evidence supporting each intervention. The Solution: Maps proposed interventions onto an evidence hierarchy.

  • Input: “We are starting Aspirin (RCT data), Statin (RCT data), and recommending a Mediterranean diet (Observational data).”
  • Visual Output: A pyramid or tiered list visually separating high-quality evidence interventions from expert opinion/observational ones.
  • Tech: Custom HTML/CSS Pyramid or Mermaid block diagram.

6. Polypharmacy Interaction Web

The Problem: Patients on 15+ medications have complex web of interactions that list-based checkers don’t visualize well. The Solution: A network graph showing medications as nodes and interactions as connecting lines.

  • Input: List of medications and known interactions.
  • Visual Output: A “spider web” graph where the density of lines highlights the most problematic drugs.
  • Tech: Mermaid.js graph LR (Circle nodes).

7. “Decision Balance” Scale

The Problem: Shared decision making involves weighing pros and cons, which can get lost in a paragraph. The Solution: A visual “scale” or side-by-side comparison of two choices.

  • Input: “Surgery has 90% cure rate but 2 week recovery and infection risk. Medical management has 60% cure rate but no downtime.”
  • Visual Output: A visual comparison table or a “weighted scale” graphic.
  • Tech: Mermaid.js quadrantChart or HTML/CSS comparison cards.

Implementation Note: “Whisper” Integration

To achieve the “rambling thoughts” to “nice graphics” workflow:

  1. Browser Speech-to-Text: Use the Web Speech API (webkitSpeechRecognition) for a zero-cost, privacy-preserving way to transcribe audio directly in the browser.
  2. AI Structuring: Pass the transcribed text to the local WebLLM model to extract the structured data needed for the visualization.
  3. Rendering: Pass the structured data to Mermaid.js or a custom renderer.

This entire pipeline can run client-side, ensuring no PHI leaves the device, making it safe for educational use with de-identified or hypothetical scenarios.