Biomedical subjects

L Hassan

Publications and source records attributed to L Hassan.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1992

Representation of nursing terminology in the UMLS Metathesaurus: a pilot study.

To see whether the National Library of Medicine's Metathesaurus (tm) includes terminology relevant to clinical nursing practice, two widely used nursing vocabularies were matched against the Meta. The two nursing vocabularies are 1) the North American Nursing Diagnosis List of Approved Diagnoses; and 2) the Omaha System, a vocabulary of problems and interventions developed by the Omaha Visiting Nurses Association. First, the terms were scanned against Meta in their "native" form, with phrases and combinations intact. This produced a relatively low percentage of exact matches (12%). Next, the terms were separated into "core concepts" and "modifiers" and the analysis was repeated. The percentage of exact matches to terms in Meta increased to 32%. However, the semantic types of the split terms often were not equivalent to the semantic types of the phrases from which the split terms were derived; also, in some cases, terms returned as exact matches had different meanings in Meta. Automatic scanning for lexical matches is a helpful first step in searching for vocabulary representation in Meta, but term-by-term search for context, semantic type and definition is essential. However, it seems clear that representation of nursing terminology in the Metathesaurus needs to be expanded.

Nursing↗

PubMed1992

Q & A: a query formulation assistant.

Inexperienced users of online medical databases often do not know how to formulate their queries for effective searches. Previous attempts to help them have provided some standard procedures for query formulation, but depend on the user to enter the concepts of a query properly so that the correct search strategy will be formed. Intelligent assistance specific to a particular query often is not given. Several systems do refine the initial strategy based on relevance feedback, but usually do not make an effort to determine how well-formed a query is before actually performing the search. As part of the Interactive Query Workstation (IQW), we have developed an expert system, Questions and Answers (Q&A), that assists in formulating an initial strategy given concepts entered by the user and that determines if the strategy is well-formed, refining it when necessary.

Expert Systems↗

PubMed1991

Interactive Query Workstation: standardizing access to computer-based medical resources.

Methods of using multiple computer-based medical resources efficiently have previously required either the user to manage the choice of resource and terms, or specialized programming. Standardized descriptions of what resources can do and how they may be accessed would allow the creation of an interface for multiple resources. This interface would assist a user in formulating queries, accessing the resources and managing the results. This paper describes a working prototype, the Interactive Query Workstation (IQW). The IQW allows users to query multiple resources: a medical knowledge base (DXplain), a clinical database (COSTAR/MQL), a bibliographic database (MEDLINE), a cancer database (PDQ), and a drug interaction database (PDR). Descriptions of each resource were developed to allow IQW to access these resources. The descriptions are composed of information on how data are sent and received from a resource, information on types of query to which a resource can respond, and information on what types of information are needed to execute a query. These components form the basis of a standard description of resources.

Artificial Intelligence↗

PubMed1991

Casebook: a system for tracking clinical encounters.

Casebook is a clinically oriented database, written in MUMPS, and designed for recording the clinical encounters of medical students at Harvard Medical School. Its main goals are to 1) increase student use of computer technology, 2) help faculty evaluate the diversity of clinical experiences on their service, 3) provide data to the faculty on the "typical" experience of medical students on their service to aid in the evaluation of the curriculum and, 4) provide report-generation capabilities for the students to improve dialog with their preceptors. Students are able to enter information on "Problems" and "Procedures" selecting from a pop-up menu of medical terms or by entering free text. Casebook is currently in use in the Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatric and Ambulatory rotations. At sites where the faculty take an active interest in the use of Casebook students perceive it to be valuable and subsequently use it more frequently. It is currently being expanded for use by medical students in their second, third, and fourth years of school.

Attitude to Computers↗