On the representation and management of medical records in a knowledge-based system

TLDR: The goal of this paper is to discuss the interdependencies of the advanced data representation models necessary to the new HISs and the interaction requirements, and the new requirements that multimediality poses on the interaction paradigms.

Abstract: The need for adapting Hospital Information Systems (HISs) to new applications (aimed at clinical data management) and to the ever growing population requires an evolution from both the representation and the usability points of view. The goal of this paper is to discuss the interdependencies of the advanced data representation models necessary to the new HISs and the interaction requirements. In particular, we present the technical taken in the MILORD (Multimedia Interaction with Large Object-oriented Radiological and clinical Databases) project to implement a departmental environment which integrates different kinds of clinical data in a user-friendly and homogeneous way. The implementation platform of the MILORD system is based on results obtained in the KIWIS project, which produced an advanced knowledge-base environment for large database systems. The interaction with a HIS is analyzed identifying the HIS-specific interaction tasks, the typical phases of the interaction with an information system, and the necessary interaction paradigms. In particular we describe the approach adopted in KIWIS for overcoming the problem of querying object-oriented databases and we discuss the new requirements that multimediality poses on the interaction paradigms.