You mention some good concerns, at least one of which I had not thought about.
For your first point:
The idea is that the timeline would allow for the capability to display events (that is,activities, visits, test results, treatments, communications, expenses, activities, medications, immunizations, journal entries, etc.) on a timeline on which all the events are related because they are all associated with a particular concern. Example: Say I got hit in the eye while playing racquetball. I would create the Activity "playing racquetball" with the date I was playing, and then add the related concern, which would be "blurred vision and eye pain"; for this concern, I saw 1 ophthalmologist for 4 visits, then I saw a retina specialist for 3 visits (she recommended a second opinion), and then I saw a second ophthalmologist for 4 more visits all over the course of 3 years. In each of the visits, my eyes were tested in a small variety of tests - each of these tests would be documented in the app and appropriately linked to the visit where they were done. Now finally, in the timeline panel I'm suggesting, from the first drop down I would select "Concern" because I want the timeline created to include events related to this specific concern and *not* other concerns. In a second drop down (or list) I would select the specific concern "blurred vision and eye pain". Then there would be check boxes below the drop downs to check every type of item I want to show on the timeline, for example all visits, test results, treatments and communications that are related to the selected concern. I would also be able to filter the items by specifying a beginning and ending date which would be used to determine which qualifying items should be displayed on the timeline.
To address the second issue - scale - you could make it a user-selectable option to use a "compressed" scale that still shows relative distances between events even if years are between them (I was thinking a logarithmic scale might work). And for those situation where even that does not work, you could allow the user to override the scale by telling the app to use equidistant spacing between events, ignoring the relative time differences but also placing the dates on the events so that upon review it is clear what events happened when and that the timeline physical spacing isn't representative of the logical time that passed. With this choice, the time order of events would be preserved (probably most important), but the relative distance between events would not be accurately portrayed (which may not be so important).
Hope this clarifies the idea a bit.
David
.
- TIA for your help!
David