The Observer Repository: Advancing Ambulatory Care Innovation Through Video-Based Clinical Ethnography
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Conventional biomedical research often yields incremental improvements in healthcare technologies, yet these fall short in addressing broader systemic issues—such as clinician burnout, regulatory complexity, and electronic health record (EHR) inefficiencies. To foster transformative innovation, researchers must engage with the sociotechnical realities of modern care delivery.
We present the Observer Repository, a platform that captures real outpatient visits through high-resolution video, structured metadata, and collaborative annotations. This system enables detailed analysis of clinical routines, team interactions, and workflow dynamics, supporting co-design and reflection among clinicians, informaticians, and designers.
To date, Observer includes over 100 recorded visits from adult primary care practices at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, with associated demographic, diagnostic, and satisfaction data. It offers a unique resource for education, workflow analysis, and model development—providing structured, real-world clinical access to support innovation in ambulatory care delivery.
