I would like to extend my sincerest congratulations to Conrad Ng, a recent MLIS grad, for winning the Best Poster Award at the iConference ’12 in Toronto earlier this month. Conrad’s was presenting a poster called, “From Data to Knowledge: Discovery of Medical Laboratory Demand Patterns Through Visualization Techniques,” The poster depicts the result of a student-led study that Conrad’s conducted in the Fall of 2011 while working as a research assistant at the Social Media Lab and in collaboration with Capital District Health Authority (CDHA).

The study uses data visualization techniques and social network analysis to determine the status and efficiency of laboratory ordering for the outpatient system in Nova Scotia. The goal of this pilot project was to turn the vast amount of data in the CDHA’s laboratory information system into usable information and to allow the CDHA to identify usage trends to better understand the future demands on lab testing and allow policymakers more insight into the Nova Scotia primary care landscape.

This initiative was done in partnership with Dr. Calvino Cheng at CDHA and was funded by Mitacs and CDHA.