Biomedical subjects

Jean-Charles Dufour

Publications and source records attributed to Jean-Charles Dufour.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Designing and implementing health data and information providers.

OBJECTIVES: To model and implement web portals providing access to certified and high-quality information in the domain of health. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) knowledge sources of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and principles of implementation resulting from the previous ARIANE project are described. The XML technology that allows files transformations by the means of XSLT is briefly presented. RESULTS: The design and implementation of software modules that exploit knowledge sources, operate the translation of a user's query to selected information sources, and wrap obtained results are detailed. Querying documentary and factual medical databases are presented. DISCUSSION: Current implementation and wrapping perspectives are discussed in terms of integration and interoperability of health information and data resources.

France↗

PubMed2005

Combining advanced networked technology and pedagogical methods to improve collaborative distance learning.

Making educational material be available on a network cannot be reduced to merely implementing hypermedia and interactive resources on a server. A pedagogical schema has to be defined to guide students for learning and to provide teachers with guidelines to prepare valuable and upgradeable resources. Components of a learning environment, as well as interactions between students and other roles such as author, tutor and manager, can be deduced from cognitive foundations of learning, such as the constructivist approach. Scripting the way a student will to navigate among information nodes and interact with tools to build his/her own knowledge can be a good way of deducing the features of the graphic interface related to the management of the objects. We defined a typology of pedagogical resources, their data model and their logic of use. We implemented a generic and web-based authoring and publishing platform (called J@LON for Join And Learn On the Net) within an object-oriented and open-source programming environment (called Zope) embedding a content management system (called Plone). Workflow features have been used to mark the progress of students and to trace the life cycle of resources shared by the teaching staff. The platform integrated advanced on line authoring features to create interactive exercises and support live courses diffusion. The platform engine has been generalized to the whole curriculum of medical studies in our faculty; it also supports an international master of risk management in health care and will be extent to all other continuous training diploma.

Cooperative Behavior↗

PubMed2005

Applicability of textual clinical practice guidelines: impact of physician interpretation.

OBJECTIVES: 1) Determine whether textual Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are interpreted accurately and unequivocally by targeted physicians. 2) Specify audience and perception of the CPGs. METHOD: Comparative analysis of answers given by a panel of general practitioners to a series of questions and clinical case studies related to three textual CPGs produced and published by the French National Agency for Accreditation and Evaluation in Health (ANAES). RESULTS: 68 to 96% of physicians are aware of the existence of the CPGs studied. Less than 50% state having read them. On average, 38% of physician interpretations of CPGs are incorrect (i.e., not in agreement with expert interpretation). Furthermore, there is disagreement among physicians responses. CONCLUSION: This study credits the argument of disparities in practice which derive from inaccurate and discordant CPGs' interpretations. The results should prompt those responsible for producing such decision-making support to design documents that are better structured, less ambiguous, and more precise. In a model which facilitates their computerisation the expression of CPGs provides a solution that should be included upstream in the publication process.

Awareness↗

PubMed2004

Coupling computer-interpretable guidelines with a drug-database through a web-based system--The PRESGUID project.

BACKGROUND: Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) available today are not extensively used due to lack of proper integration into clinical settings, knowledge-related information resources, and lack of decision support at the point of care in a particular clinical context. OBJECTIVE: The PRESGUID project (PREScription and GUIDelines) aims to improve the assistance provided by guidelines. The project proposes an online service enabling physicians to consult computerized CPGs linked to drug databases for easier integration into the healthcare process. METHODS: Computable CPGs are structured as decision trees and coded in XML format. Recommendations related to drug classes are tagged with ATC codes. We use a mapping module to enhance computerized guidelines coupling with a drug database, which contains detailed information about each usable specific medication. In this way, therapeutic recommendations are backed up with current and up-to-date information from the database. RESULTS: Two authoritative CPGs, originally diffused as static textual documents, have been implemented to validate the computerization process and to illustrate the usefulness of the resulting automated CPGs and their coupling with a drug database. We discuss the advantages of this approach for practitioners and the implications for both guideline developers and drug database providers. Other CPGs will be implemented and evaluated in real conditions by clinicians working in different health institutions.

Computer Graphics↗

PubMed2004

Towards interoperability of heterogeneous health databases: application to a tumor samples bank.

OBJECTIVES: to define principles and methods that allow heterogeneous database in the health sector to be interoperable. MATERIAL AND METHOD: to design a component-based middleware able to provide flexible and efficient means of communication between end-users and databases, and that exploits the standard nomenclatures of the health sector. RESULTS: according to these principles, to implement a prototype of a tumor sample bank in the University hospitals of Marseille, France. DISCUSSION: to discuss the benefits that the approach brings and the progress in prototyping.

Computer Systems↗

PubMed2003

Modeling and implementing a health information provider on the Internet.

OBJECTIVES: To model and implement a medical web portal providing access to well qualified and high-quality information. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) knowledge sources of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and an Information Sources Catalog (ISC) resulting from the ARIANE project are described. The XML technology that allows files transformations by the means of XSLT is briefly presented. RESULTS: The design and implementation of software modules that exploit knowledge sources, operate the translation of a user's query to selected information sources, and wrap obtained results are detailed. DISCUSSION: Current implementation and wrapping perspectives are discussed in terms of integration and interoperability of health information resources.

Humans↗

PubMed2003

A platform to develop and to improve effectiveness of online computable guidelines.

The quality criteria of guidelines are identified. Taking these criteria into account we have built a platform to improve computable guideline effectiveness and facilitate their production. Our implementation is based on the GLIF Model (GuideLine Interchange Format). We have designed software components to edit, test, index, perform and present guidelines in a user-friendly Web architecture. These components are based on XML specifications in order to preserve their shareability and their re-usability. Several guidelines have been developed using our approach. We discuss the advantages of such an implementation and future evolutions so as to improve guideline integration within the clinician's workflow.

Decision Support Systems, Clinical↗