We have finished Phase 1 of our COMPASS-TB Report Design Study, an online survey exploring the utilization of different genome-derived data types for TB management tasks.
The full summary report can be found here.
Summary
Many public health agencies are starting to use whole genome sequencing as a tool for diagnosing infections, predicting drug resistance, and identifying closely related isolates that might suggest an outbreak. The COMPASS-TB study compared a novel WGS diagnostic pipeline to the standard diagnostic approach and demonstrated that, when this technique is used in the tuberculosis laboratory, we can generate all the usual results that one has come to expect from a reference mycobacteriology lab, but we can do so much faster and at lower cost (Pankhurst et al., 2016). As a result of this study, groups like Public Health England, the BC Centre for Disease Control, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are all using genomics to analyze their incoming mycobacterial isolates.
The COMPASS-TB study demonstrated that WGS can be used to diagnose, resistance type and genotype tuberculosis isolates more efficiently than the current diagnostic pipeline; however, further work was required to translate these often complex results into something that can be interpreted and used by clinicians and public health professionals. This study aims to use formal InfoVis methodologies to develop a report for the COMPASS-TB diagnostic WGS pipeline (Sedlmair et al., 2012). The design of the final report will be guided by user preference, while meeting both their needs and reporting requirements for accreditation (International Organization for Standardization, 2012).
In the first phase of the report design study, users of lab data were surveyed to assess knowledge of different data types and how they were used in routine clinical and public health management of tuberculosis.
While the number of participants was limited (n = 17), the survey did provide some insight into what tasks genome-derived data may be considered useful. These insights will help guide the next phase of the study, where prototype reports will be developed in collaboration with human computer interaction researchers and evaluated through a second online survey.
Stay posted for our recruitment notice for the second survey!