Electronic patient records (EPR) can be regarded as an implicit source of clinical behaviour and problem-solving knowledge, systematically compiled by clinicians. We present an approach, together with its computational implementation, to pro-actively transform XML-based EPR into specialised Clinical Cases (CC) in the realm of Medical Case Base Systems. The 'correct' transformation of EPR to CC involves structural, terminological and conceptual standardisation, which is achieved by a confluence of techniques and resources, such as XML, UMLS (meta-thesaurus) and medical knowledge ontologies. We present below the functional architecture of a Medical Case-Base Reasoning Info-Structure (MCRIS) that features two distinct, yet related, functionalities: (1) a generic medical case-based reasoning system for decision-support activities; and (2) an EPR-CC transformation system to transform typical EPR's to CC.
Matched MeSH terms: Medical Informatics Computing*
Easier and focused access to healthcare information can empower individuals to make 'informed' choices and judgements about personal health maintenance. To achieve 'optimum' patient empowerment, we need to re-evaluate and potentially re-design the processes of healthcare information delivery. Our suggestion is that healthcare information should be personalised according to each individual's healthcare needs and it should be pro-actively delivered, i.e. pushed towards the individual. We present an intelligent Personalised Healthcare Information Delivery Systems that aims to enhance patient empowerment by pro-actively pushing customised, based on one's Electronic Medical Record, health maintenance information via the WWW.
Matched MeSH terms: Medical Informatics Computing*
Health-Level (HL) 7 message semantics allows effective functional implementation of Electronic Medical Record (EMR)--encompassing both clinical and administrative (i.e. demographic and financial) information--interchange systems, at the expense of complexity with respect the Protocol Data Unit (PDU) structure and the client-side application architecture. In this paper we feature the usage of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) document-object modelling and Java client-server connectivity towards the implementation of a Web-based system for EMR transaction processing. Our solution features an XML-based description of EMR templates, which are subsequently transcribed into a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)-Javascript form. This allows client-side user interfaceability and server-side functionality--i.e. message validation, authentication and database connectivity--to be handled through standard Web client-server mechanisms, the primary assumption being availability of a browser capable of XML documents and the associated stylesheets. We assume usage of the Internet as the interchange medium, hence the necessity for authentication and data privacy mechanisms, both of which can be constructed using standard Java-based building blocks.
Matched MeSH terms: Medical Informatics Computing*