Internet
A loose confederation of computer communication networks around the world. The networks that make up the Internet are connected through several backbone networks. The Internet grew out of the US Government ARPAnet project and was designed to facilitate information exchange.
Technology
Information Services
Biomedical Technology
The application of technology to the solution of medical problems.
Consumer Health Information
Computer Communication Networks
A system containing any combination of computers, computer terminals, printers, audio or visual display devices, or telephones interconnected by telecommunications equipment or cables: used to transmit or receive information. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed)
Medical Informatics
The field of information science concerned with the analysis and dissemination of medical data through the application of computers to various aspects of health care and medicine.
Electronic Mail
Messages between computer users via COMPUTER COMMUNICATION NETWORKS. This feature duplicates most of the features of paper mail, such as forwarding, multiple copies, and attachments of images and other file types, but with a speed advantage. The term also refers to an individual message sent in this way.
Information Seeking Behavior
Computer Literacy
Familiarity and comfort in using computers efficiently.
Technology Assessment, Biomedical
Evaluation of biomedical technology in relation to cost, efficacy, utilization, etc., and its future impact on social, ethical, and legal systems.
Online Systems
Technology Transfer
Spread and adoption of inventions and techniques from one geographic area to another, from one discipline to another, or from one sector of the economy to another. For example, improvements in medical equipment may be transferred from industrial countries to developing countries, advances arising from aerospace engineering may be applied to equipment for persons with disabilities, and innovations in science arising from government research are made available to private enterprise.
Telemedicine
Delivery of health services via remote telecommunications. This includes interactive consultative and diagnostic services.
User-Computer Interface
Information Storage and Retrieval
Access to Information
Cellular Phone
Analog or digital communications device in which the user has a wireless connection from a telephone to a nearby transmitter. It is termed cellular because the service area is divided into multiple "cells." As the user moves from one cell area to another, the call is transferred to the local transmitter.
Educational Technology
Systematic identification, development, organization, or utilization of educational resources and the management of these processes. It is occasionally used also in a more limited sense to describe the use of equipment-oriented techniques or audiovisual aids in educational settings. (Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, December 1993, p132)
Computer User Training
Process of teaching a person to interact and communicate with a computer.
Behavior, Addictive
The observable, measurable, and often pathological activity of an organism that portrays its inability to overcome a habit resulting in an insatiable craving for a substance or for performing certain acts. The addictive behavior includes the emotional and physical overdependence on the object of habit in increasing amount or frequency.
Questionnaires
Computer-Assisted Instruction
Self-Help Groups
Organizations which provide an environment encouraging social interactions through group activities or individual relationships especially for the purpose of rehabilitating or supporting patients, individuals with common health problems, or the elderly. They include therapeutic social clubs.
Social Networking
Software
Education, Distance
Education via communication media (correspondence, radio, television, computer networks) with little or no in-person face-to-face contact between students and teachers. (ERIC Thesaurus, 1997)
Erotica
Literary or artistic items having an erotic theme. It refers especially to books treating sexual love in a sensuous or voluptuous manner. (Webster, 3d ed)
Medical Laboratory Science
United States
The term "United States" in a medical context often refers to the country where a patient or study participant resides, and is not a medical term per se, but relevant for epidemiological studies, healthcare policies, and understanding differences in disease prevalence, treatment patterns, and health outcomes across various geographic locations.
Medical Informatics Applications
Health Education
Data Collection
Systematic gathering of data for a particular purpose from various sources, including questionnaires, interviews, observation, existing records, and electronic devices. The process is usually preliminary to statistical analysis of the data.
Remote Consultation
Consultation via remote telecommunications, generally for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment of a patient at a site remote from the patient or primary physician.
Social Media
Platforms that provide the ability and tools to create and publish information accessed via the INTERNET. Generally these platforms have three characteristics with content user generated, high degree of interaction between creator and viewer, and easily integrated with other sites.
Technology, Dental
The field of dentistry involved in procedures for designing and constructing dental appliances. It includes also the application of any technology to the field of dentistry.
Computer Security
Protective measures against unauthorized access to or interference with computer operating systems, telecommunications, or data structures, especially the modification, deletion, destruction, or release of data in computers. It includes methods of forestalling interference by computer viruses or so-called computer hackers aiming to compromise stored data.
Information Systems
Communications Media
Technology, High-Cost
Advanced technology that is costly, requires highly skilled personnel, and is unique in its particular application. Includes innovative, specialized medical/surgical procedures as well as advanced diagnostic and therapeutic equipment.
Computer Systems
Systems composed of a computer or computers, peripheral equipment, such as disks, printers, and terminals, and telecommunications capabilities.
Teleradiology
The electronic transmission of radiological images from one location to another for the purposes of interpretation and/or consultation. Users in different locations may simultaneously view images with greater access to secondary consultations and improved continuing education. (From American College of Radiology, ACR Standard for Teleradiology, 1994, p3)
Computers
A computer in a medical context is an electronic device that processes, stores, and retrieves data, often used in medical settings for tasks such as maintaining patient records, managing diagnostic images, and supporting clinical decision-making through software applications and tools.
Library Automation
The use of automatic machines or processing devices in libraries. The automation may be applied to library administrative activities, office procedures, and delivery of library services to users.
Search Engine
Software used to locate data or information stored in machine-readable form locally or at a distance such as an INTERNET site.
Microcomputers
Small computers using LSI (large-scale integration) microprocessor chips as the CPU (central processing unit) and semiconductor memories for compact, inexpensive storage of program instructions and data. They are smaller and less expensive than minicomputers and are usually built into a dedicated system where they are optimized for a particular application. "Microprocessor" may refer to just the CPU or the entire microcomputer.
Reproducibility of Results
The statistical reproducibility of measurements (often in a clinical context), including the testing of instrumentation or techniques to obtain reproducible results. The concept includes reproducibility of physiological measurements, which may be used to develop rules to assess probability or prognosis, or response to a stimulus; reproducibility of occurrence of a condition; and reproducibility of experimental results.
Diffusion of Innovation
Patient Participation
Reproductive Techniques, Assisted
Databases, Factual
Extensive collections, reputedly complete, of facts and data garnered from material of a specialized subject area and made available for analysis and application. The collection can be automated by various contemporary methods for retrieval. The concept should be differentiated from DATABASES, BIBLIOGRAPHIC which is restricted to collections of bibliographic references.
Video Games
A form of interactive entertainment in which the player controls electronically generated images that appear on a video display screen. This includes video games played in the home on special machines or home computers, and those played in arcades.
Blogging
Using an INTERNET based personal journal which may consist of reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks.
Confidentiality
The privacy of information and its protection against unauthorized disclosure.
Systems Integration
Computers, Handheld
A type of MICROCOMPUTER, sometimes called a personal digital assistant, that is very small and portable and fitting in a hand. They are convenient to use in clinical and other field situations for quick data management. They usually require docking with MICROCOMPUTERS for updates.
Medical Informatics Computing
Biotechnology
Body of knowledge related to the use of organisms, cells or cell-derived constituents for the purpose of developing products which are technically, scientifically and clinically useful. Alteration of biologic function at the molecular level (i.e., GENETIC ENGINEERING) is a central focus; laboratory methods used include TRANSFECTION and CLONING technologies, sequence and structure analysis algorithms, computer databases, and gene and protein structure function analysis and prediction.
Health Records, Personal
Medical Records Systems, Computerized
Wireless Technology
National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
An agency of the NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH concerned with overall planning, promoting, and administering programs pertaining to advancement of medical and related sciences. Major activities of this institute include the collection, dissemination, and exchange of information important to the progress of medicine and health, research in medical informatics and support for medical library development.
Technology, Pharmaceutical
The application of scientific knowledge or technology to pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry. It includes methods, techniques, and instrumentation in the manufacture, preparation, compounding, dispensing, packaging, and storing of drugs and other preparations used in diagnostic and determinative procedures, and in the treatment of patients.
MEDLINE
Self Care
Health Communication
The transfer of information from experts in the medical and public health fields to patients and the public. The study and use of communication strategies to inform and influence individual and community decisions that enhance health.
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Algorithms
Grateful Med
A microcomputer-based software package providing a user-friendly interface to the MEDLARS system of the National Library of Medicine.
Communication
Telepathology
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
Pilot Projects
Telephone
Self-Help Devices
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Radiology Information Systems
Information systems, usually computer-assisted, designed to store, manipulate, and retrieve information for planning, organizing, directing, and controlling administrative activities associated with the provision and utilization of radiology services and facilities.
Computational Biology
A field of biology concerned with the development of techniques for the collection and manipulation of biological data, and the use of such data to make biological discoveries or predictions. This field encompasses all computational methods and theories for solving biological problems including manipulation of models and datasets.
Quality Control
Commerce
The interchange of goods or commodities, especially on a large scale, between different countries or between populations within the same country. It includes trade (the buying, selling, or exchanging of commodities, whether wholesale or retail) and business (the purchase and sale of goods to make a profit). (From Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed, p411, p2005 & p283)
Software Design
Specifications and instructions applied to the software.
Technology, Radiologic
The application of scientific knowledge or technology to the field of radiology. The applications center mostly around x-ray or radioisotopes for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes but the technological applications of any radiation or radiologic procedure is within the scope of radiologic technology.
Multimedia
Local Area Networks
Communications networks connecting various hardware devices together within or between buildings by means of a continuous cable or voice data telephone system.
Gene Expression Profiling
Privacy
Delivery of Health Care
Neoplasms
Database Management Systems
Forecasting
Feasibility Studies
CD-ROM
Word Processing
Text editing and storage functions using computer software.
Mobile Applications
Computer programs or software installed on mobile electronic devices which support a wide range of functions and uses which include television, telephone, video, music, word processing, and Internet service.
Textbooks as Topic
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
Techniques of nucleotide sequence analysis that increase the range, complexity, sensitivity, and accuracy of results by greatly increasing the scale of operations and thus the number of nucleotides, and the number of copies of each nucleotide sequenced. The sequencing may be done by analysis of the synthesis or ligation products, hybridization to preexisting sequences, etc.
Databases as Topic
Organized collections of computer records, standardized in format and content, that are stored in any of a variety of computer-readable modes. They are the basic sets of data from which computer-readable files are created. (from ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983)
Biomedical Research
Cross-Sectional Studies
Videoconferencing
Communications via an interactive conference between two or more participants at different sites, using computer networks (COMPUTER COMMUNICATION NETWORKS) or other telecommunication links to transmit audio, video, and data.
Postal Service
The functions and activities carried out by the U.S. Postal Service, foreign postal services, and private postal services such as Federal Express.
Advertising as Topic
Information Management
Patient Satisfaction
Databases, Bibliographic
Extensive collections, reputedly complete, of references and citations to books, articles, publications, etc., generally on a single subject or specialized subject area. Databases can operate through automated files, libraries, or computer disks. The concept should be differentiated from DATABASES, FACTUAL which is used for collections of data and facts apart from bibliographic references to them.
Public Health Informatics
The systematic application of information and computer sciences to public health practice, research, and learning.
Libraries, Medical
'Medical Libraries' are repositories or digital platforms that accumulate, organize, and provide access to a wide range of biomedical information resources including but not limited to books, journals, electronic databases, multimedia materials, and other evidence-based health data for the purpose of supporting and advancing clinical practice, education, research, and administration in healthcare.
Health Promotion
Computer Graphics
The process of pictorial communication, between human and computers, in which the computer input and output have the form of charts, drawings, or other appropriate pictorial representation.
Publishing
"The business or profession of the commercial production and issuance of literature" (Webster's 3d). It includes the publisher, publication processes, editing and editors. Production may be by conventional printing methods or by electronic publishing.
Sensitivity and Specificity
Libraries, Digital
Cost-Benefit Analysis
A method of comparing the cost of a program with its expected benefits in dollars (or other currency). The benefit-to-cost ratio is a measure of total return expected per unit of money spent. This analysis generally excludes consideration of factors that are not measured ultimately in economic terms. Cost effectiveness compares alternative ways to achieve a specific set of results.
Social Support
Support systems that provide assistance and encouragement to individuals with physical or emotional disabilities in order that they may better cope. Informal social support is usually provided by friends, relatives, or peers, while formal assistance is provided by churches, groups, etc.
Text Messaging
Munchausen Syndrome
Data Display
Marketing of Health Services
Application of marketing principles and techniques to maximize the use of health care resources.
Drug Information Services
Electronic Health Records
Media that facilitate transportability of pertinent information concerning patient's illness across varied providers and geographic locations. Some versions include direct linkages to online consumer health information that is relevant to the health conditions and treatments related to a specific patient.
Copyright
It is a form of protection provided by law. In the United States this protection is granted to authors of original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. (from Circular of the United States Copyright Office, 6/30/2008)
Research Design
Attitude of Health Personnel
Attitudes of personnel toward their patients, other professionals, toward the medical care system, etc.
Books
A book is not a medical term, but generally refers to a set of printed or written sheets of paper bound together that can contain a wide range of information including literature, research, educational content, and more, which may be utilized in the medical field for various purposes such as learning, reference, or patient education.
Counterfeit Drugs
Drugs manufactured and sold with the intent to misrepresent its origin, authenticity, chemical composition, and or efficacy. Counterfeit drugs may contain inappropriate quantities of ingredients not listed on the label or package. In order to further deceive the consumer, the packaging, container, or labeling, may be inaccurate, incorrect, or fake.
Hospital Information Systems
Safety
Program Evaluation
Great Britain
Health Care Surveys
Practice Management, Dental
Patient Selection
Criteria and standards used for the determination of the appropriateness of the inclusion of patients with specific conditions in proposed treatment plans and the criteria used for the inclusion of subjects in various clinical trials and other research protocols.
Compulsive Behavior
The behavior of performing an act persistently and repetitively without it leading to reward or pleasure. The act is usually a small, circumscribed behavior, almost ritualistic, yet not pathologically disturbing. Examples of compulsive behavior include twirling of hair, checking something constantly, not wanting pennies in change, straightening tilted pictures, etc.
Librarians
Specialists in the management of a library or the services rendered by a library, bringing professional skills to administration, organization of material and personnel, interpretation of bibliothecal rules, the development and maintenance of the library's collection, and the provision of information services.
Universities
Educational institutions providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees.
Radiology
Hypermedia
Computerized compilations of information units (text, sound, graphics, and/or video) interconnected by logical nonlinear linkages that enable users to follow optimal paths through the material and also the systems used to create and display this information. (From Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, 1994)
Parents
Persons functioning as natural, adoptive, or substitute parents. The heading includes the concept of parenthood as well as preparation for becoming a parent.
Patients
Office Automation
Use of computers or computer systems for doing routine clerical work, e.g., billing, records pertaining to the administration of the office, etc.
Diagnostic Imaging
Evidence-Based Medicine
An approach of practicing medicine with the goal to improve and evaluate patient care. It requires the judicious integration of best research evidence with the patient's values to make decisions about medical care. This method is to help physicians make proper diagnosis, devise best testing plan, choose best treatment and methods of disease prevention, as well as develop guidelines for large groups of patients with the same disease. (from JAMA 296 (9), 2006)
Information Science
The field of knowledge, theory, and technology dealing with the collection of facts and figures, and the processes and methods involved in their manipulation, storage, dissemination, publication, and retrieval. It includes the fields of COMMUNICATION; PUBLISHING; LIBRARY SCIENCE; and informatics.
Public Opinion
Health Behavior
Behaviors expressed by individuals to protect, maintain or promote their health status. For example, proper diet, and appropriate exercise are activities perceived to influence health status. Life style is closely associated with health behavior and factors influencing life style are socioeconomic, educational, and cultural.
Evaluation Studies as Topic
Interviews as Topic
Mass Media
Instruments or technological means of communication that reach large numbers of people with a common message: press, radio, television, etc.
PubMed
A bibliographic database that includes MEDLINE as its primary subset. It is produced by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE. PubMed, which is searchable through NLM's Web site, also includes access to additional citations to selected life sciences journals not in MEDLINE, and links to other resources such as the full-text of articles at participating publishers' Web sites, NCBI's molecular biology databases, and PubMed Central.
Libraries, Hospital
Health Services Accessibility
Terminology as Topic
Marketing
Public Health
Medical Oncology
A subspecialty of internal medicine concerned with the study of neoplasms.
Factitious Disorders
Focus Groups
A method of data collection and a QUALITATIVE RESEARCH tool in which a small group of individuals are brought together and allowed to interact in a discussion of their opinions about topics, issues, or questions.
Socioeconomic Factors
Protein Array Analysis
Treatment Outcome
Evaluation undertaken to assess the results or consequences of management and procedures used in combating disease in order to determine the efficacy, effectiveness, safety, and practicability of these interventions in individual cases or series.
Risk-Taking
Health Surveys
Decision Making, Computer-Assisted
Population Surveillance
Robotics
Qualitative Research
Pharmaceutical Services
Total pharmaceutical services provided by qualified PHARMACISTS. In addition to the preparation and distribution of medical products, they may include consultative services provided to agencies and institutions which do not have a qualified pharmacist.
Nursing Informatics
The field of information science concerned with the analysis and dissemination of data through the application of computers applied to the field of nursing.