A model for enhancing Internet medical document retrieval with "medical core metadata".
(1/132)
OBJECTIVE: Finding documents on the World Wide Web relevant to a specific medical information need can be difficult. The goal of this work is to define a set of document content description tags, or metadata encodings, that can be used to promote disciplined search access to Internet medical documents. DESIGN: The authors based their approach on a proposed metadata standard, the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, which has recently been submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force. Their model also incorporates the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) vocabulary and MEDLINE-type content descriptions. RESULTS: The model defines a medical core metadata set that can be used to describe the metadata for a wide variety of Internet documents. CONCLUSIONS: The authors propose that their medical core metadata set be used to assign metadata to medical documents to facilitate document retrieval by Internet search engines. (+info)
Using commercially available off-the-shelf software and hardware to develop an intranet-based hypertext markup language teaching file.
(2/132)
This presentation describes the technical details of implementing a process to create digital teaching files stressing the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software and hardware and standard hypertext markup language (HTML) to keep development costs to a minimum. (+info)
The Conquest Hospital picture archiving and communications system development, 1992 to 1999.
(3/132)
Conquest Hospital was a UK regional development site for a pre-Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) picture archiving and communication system (PACS). The initial system was installed in mid 1992. Identification has been made of data transfer, ergonomic and single point of failure issues in the original PACS, which was called "iLAN." This has informed respecification of a DICOM/HTML PACS, the first stages of which have been hospital renetworking and installation of new DICOM 3.0 computed radiography/fluorography and computed tomography/magnetic resonance imaging segments. Final PACS elements are at contract stage. Plans are being completed for linkage of PACS to a clinical information system to create a comprehensive electronic patient record system. (+info)
Neuronal database integration: the Senselab EAV data model.
(4/132)
We discuss an approach towards integrating heterogeneous nervous system data using an augmented Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) schema design. This approach, widely used in implementing electronic patient record systems (EPRSs), allows the physical schema of the database to be relatively immune to changes in domain knowledge. This is because new kinds of facts are added as data (or as metadata) rather than hard-coded as the names of newly created tables or columns. Because the domain knowledge is stored as metadata, a framework developed in one scientific domain can be ported to another with only modest revision. We describe our progress in creating a code framework that handles browsing and hyperlinking of the different kinds of data. (+info)
A surgical pathology system for gross specimen examination.
(5/132)
The concepts used in the storage of still digital images obtained during gross specimen examination of tissues and organs in surgical pathology using a digital camera are described. We address the technical aspects related with the implementation of a prototype tool to assist the pathologist during the sampling process as well the logic archive support to store the acquired images. We describe, also, the hypermedia concepts that allow the navigation and the efficient examination of the information contained in the stored images. The advantages, the technological and human limitations, and the effects of using images in the documentation of a case are also discussed. (+info)
Workflow analysis and evidence-based medicine: towards integration of knowledge-based functions in hospital information systems.
(6/132)
The large extent and complexity of scientific evidence described in the concept of evidence-based medicine often overwhelms clinicians who want to apply best external evidence. Hospital Information Systems usually do not provide knowledge-based functions to support context-sensitive linking to external information sources. Knowledge-based components need specific data, which must be entered manually and should be well adapted to clinical environment to be accepted by clinicians. This paper describes a workflow-based approach to understand and visualize clinical reality as a preliminary to designing software applications, and possible starting points for further software development. (+info)
Users' evaluation of OncoDoc, a breast cancer therapeutic guideline delivered at the point of care.
(7/132)
Despite the dissemination of computer-based "clinical practice guidelines" as decision support systems, low practical compliance rates are still observed. The reason commonly invoked is that such recommendations, suited to average patients, are not rules for all the patients. Rather than providing automatic decision support, OncoDoc allows the clinician to operationalize the implemented breast cancer therapeutic expertise through his hypertextual reading of the knowledge base. In this way, he has the opportunity to interpret the information provided in the context of his patient therefore controlling his categorization to the closest appropriate "average patient". After a four-month real-life experimentation of the system, a survey was conducted among the users. The observed compliance, significantly higher than the best figures found in the literature, and the clinicians objective and subjective evaluation of the system reinforced the implementation choices adopted in OncoDoc. (+info)
The TextBase project--implementation of a base level message supporting electronic patient record transfer in English general practice.
(8/132)
The TextBase project is a laboratory experiment to assess the feasibility of a common exchange format for sending a transcription of the contents of the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) between different general practices, when patients move from one practice to another in the NHS in England. The project was managed using a partnership arrangement between the four EPR systems vendors who agreed to collaborate and the project team. It lasted one year and consisted of an iterative design process followed by creation of message generation and reading modules within the collaborating EPR systems according to a software requirement specification created by the project team. The paper describes the creation of a common record display format, the implementation of transfer using a floppy disk in the lab, and considers the further barriers before a national implementation might be achieved. (+info)