An xAPI-based Web App in the Health Sector

Client Needs and the Solution

The client is an establishing business in the health sector. The client needed a fully comprehensive eLearning and web-app based solution that could support its own client organisations.

The client has devised their own unique balance training, balance testing and education package regime to support patients who are elderly or are suffering from illness or an injury. The package is based on the SAS Measure, (Strength, Agility, Stability), a method to score a patient's balance with the help of its SAS Mat^® product.

See below for more information. Also included, an excerpt from the training module.

The business considered the needs of its client organisations. Practitioners within these organisations would need to onboard into the regime. If testing and data retrieval was automated, the testing regime's efficiency and reliability would also be enhanced greatly. To summarise needs the business wanted to address:
‍

• The need for a training package to instruct practitioners in the use of the SAS Mat and diagnosis of balance ability — preferably through eLearning.
• The need for an system that can grant user access to testing once training has been successfully completed.
• A system that reliably protects patient data by granting access using levels of authority.
• An efficient testing apparatus that uses automated timers to guide users through the tests and builds a score behind the user interface.
• The need for reliable data storage and efficient data retrieval.
• A versatile user experience that retrieves data based on chosen user inputs.

To address these needs, the following was actioned:
‍

• An eLearning module that onboarded practitioners with the testing system. In this module, xAPI statements registered the user with an organisation and declared the training 'passed'.
• Storyline-based testing calculators with inbuilt timers, one for each of the 3 unique tests. xAPI statements declared testing 'completed' with associated scores and timestamps, with options for manual overrides and user-defined notes.
• A middleware node to maintain data privacy in its communication between the module and Learning Record Store.
• Advanced javascript-based data sorting capability to organise data retrieved from xAPI queries.  
• A patient window that lists test results alongside the date they were carried out on.
• Patient registration and look-up portals, powered by multiple kinds of xAPI queries to ensure there are no double-up patient listings (among other things).
• A groups section that allows users to add and remove patients from groups (e.g. November workshop group).
• Auto-generated PDF reports: test history for a single patient; a report of all patients under a specific authority or inside a certain group; group-based reporting of patient progress (comparing results from their latest test with results from their first test)
• Data filtering based on authority, handled through the Middleware node, to limit user access to the wider dataset.
• Plans to upgrade levels of authority from one to three, so that access to data can be limited based on individual user (e.g. a physiotherapist at a private clinic), organisation (the clinic as a whole) and wider health authority (e.g. NSW dept of Health).

Samples and Excerpts

The following contains images, gifs and excerpts of JS code.

Below, another excerpt from the training module. The SAS Measure tests for balance ability at 7 separate levels of difficulty.

The SAS Measure can be found using the SAS Test. Below is the calculator interface used for the SAS Test.

In the SAS Test, each level is timed. If the user successfully holds a stance for 10 seconds, they move up to the next level. If not, the time level and time they held the stance for is used to formulate a score.

Below, the patient window shows test data for a mock patient (client). In this specific case, an xAPI query has organised found and organised 6 separate test statements into the table.

In this mock example, the patient might have signed up to a 2 month physiotherapy program to improve her balance. The physiotherapist has conducted testing at the beginning and end of the program in order to quantify the patient's improvement over this period.

The query used to return and organise these results is written below. It uses an asynchronous fetch function to allow other areas of the page to operate—whilst it is still processing. It makes up one of five query templates used in this project.

Using the 'export client data' button, test results are exported to PDF (see below). The PDF also includes notes that were taken during each of the tests.