Evaluating user response to patient health records represented in temporal and non-temporal form

Though it is common for research to rely on the results of computer algorithms in the evaluation of data, there is great potential for visualisation tools to enhance researchers’ abilities to qualify and evaluate large datasets. Tools for graphically representing patient health records have to date focussed on temporal (i.e., time line) presentations. We present the results of an exploration of the utility to researchers of non-temporal presentations of large medical data resources, and show how they have been incorporated into a web-based interactive tool for visualising electronic health records.