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Biomedical subjects

R Haux

Publications and source records attributed to R Haux.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Twenty five years of medical informatics education at Heidelberg/Heilbronn: discussion of a specialized curriculum for medical informatics.

The specialized university curriculum for medical informatics (MI) at the University of Heidelberg/School of Technology Heilbronn is one of the oldest educational approaches in the field of MI and has been successful now for 25 years with about 1000 graduates (Diplom-Informatikerin der Medizin or Diplom-Informatiker der Medizin). It belongs to the category of dedicated master's programs for MI and is based on the concept of MI as a medical discipline of its own. It is oriented towards the total spectrum of MI ranging from health care economics, biosignal and medical image processing, medical documentation, to information and knowledge processing in medicine. It is a 4.5 years program with a strong emphasis on the methodological foundations of MI and on practical education in a number of specific laboratories. A total of 35 students are admitted each semester and in total about 440 students are enrolled. The faculty consists of 17 full-time members and about 25 part-time lecturers. The authors report on characteristics, structure and contents of the new fifth version of the curriculum and discuss the features of a specialized curriculum for MI with respect to the challenges for MI in the 21st century.

Artificial Intelligence↗
PubMed1998

Teaching the fundamentals of information systems management in health care. Lecture and practical training for students of medical informatics.

For the management of information systems in health care, it is important that projects are systematically planned and carried out. This is a major task for medical informatics professionals which should be taught in a medical informatics curriculum. In the respective lecture in the Heidelberg/Heilbronn medical informatics curriculum, we teach fundamentals of the management of information systems and of projects. The examples of the lecture are taken from hospital information systems. Furthermore, we have developed a 5-step method for the systematic, goal-oriented planning of projects. The lecture is complemented by a comprehensive practical training, so that the methods taught can be applied to a particular, relevant problem of the Heidelberg University Hospital.

Curriculum↗
PubMed1998

Cooperative problem solving with personal mobile information tools in hospitals.

Health-care professionals have a broad range of needs for information and cooperation while working at different points of care (e.g., outpatient departments, wards, and functional units such as operating theaters). Patient-related data and medical knowledge have to be widely available to support high-quality patient care. Furthermore, due to the increased specialization of health-care professionals, efficient collaboration is required. Personal mobile information tools have a considerable potential to realize almost ubiquitous information and collaborative support. They enable to unite the functionality of conventional tools such as paper forms, dictating machines, and pagers into one tool. Moreover, they can extend the support already provided by clinical workstations. An approach is described for the integration of mobile information tools with heterogeneous hospital information systems. This approach includes identification of functions which should be provided on mobile tools. Major functions are the presentation of medical records and reports, electronic mailing to support interpersonal communication, and the provision of editors for structured clinical documentation. To realize those functions on mobile tools, we propose a document-based client-server architecture that enables mobile information tools to interoperate with existing computer-based application systems. Open application systems and powerful, partially wireless, hospital-wide networks are the prerequisites for the introduction of mobile information tools.

Decision Making, Computer-Assisted↗
PubMed1998

An integrated approach for a knowledge-based clinical workstation: architecture and experience.

Today, the demand for medical decision support to improve the quality of patient care and to reduce costs in health services is generally recognized. Nevertheless, decision support is not yet established in daily routine within hospital information systems which often show a heterogeneous architecture but offer possibilities of interoperability. Currently, the integration of decision support functions into clinical workstations is the most promising way. Therefore, we first discuss aspects of integrating decision support into clinical workstations including clinical needs, integration of database and knowledge base, knowledge sharing and reuse and the role of standardized terminology. In addition, we draw up functional requirements to support the physician dealing with patient care, medical research and administrative tasks. As a consequence, we propose a general architecture of an integrated knowledge-based clinical workstation. Based on an example application we discuss our experiences concerning clinical applicability and relevance. We show that, although our approach promotes the integration of decision support into hospital information systems, the success of decision support depends above all on an adequate transformation of clinical needs.

Artificial Intelligence↗
PubMed1998

Transformation of health care through innovative use of information technology: challenges for health and medical informatics education.

Information storage and processing continues to become increasingly important for health care, and offers enormous potential to be realised in the delivery of health care. Therefore, it is imperative that all health care professionals should learn skills and gain knowledge in the field of health informatics, or medical informatics, respectively. Working Group 1, Health and Medical Informatics Education, of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA WG1) seeks to advance the knowledge of how these skills are taught in courses for the various health care professions around the world, and includes physicians, nurses, administrators, and specialists in medical informatics. IMIA WG1 held its 6th International Conference on Health and Medical Education in Newcastle, Australia, in August 1997. The theme of the conference was 'Transformation of Healthcare through Innovative Use of Information Technology'. This special issue of the International Journal of Medical Informatics on Health and Medical Informatics Education contains selected papers presented at the conference. In addition to the central topic, Educating Health Care Professionals in Medical Informatics the topics telematics, distance education and computer based training were also discussed at the conference.

Health Occupations↗
PubMed1998

Health and medical informatics education: perspectives for the next decade.

It is argued that the progress of information processing and information technology changes our societies. Examples are given that there is a significant economic relevance of information technology for medicine and healthcare and for the quality of healthcare as well. In order to adequately pursue the goal of 'Transforming healthcare through innovative use of information technology for the 21st century' (the topic of the 6th International Conference on Health and Medical Informatics Education and of this special issue of the International Journal of Medical Informatics), health professionals are needed who are well-educated in health informatics or medical informatics, respectively. Raising the scope and the quality of education in the field of health and medical informatics would help to raise the quality and efficiency of healthcare. In this context the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and its working group 1 (WG1) on Health and Medical Informatics Education can make a contribution by disseminating information and by elaborating recommendations on courses and programs in health and medical informatics. For this purpose IMIA WG1 has established a WWW site (http://www.imia.org/wg1) with information on health and medical informatics programs and courses. All teachers and institutions are encouraged to submit information about courses and programs offered and to set pointers to their own WWW sites. In addition, a mailing list was installed to facilitate communication between all persons involved in health and medical informatics education. For subscription, a message has to be sent to 'listserv@relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de'. The body of the message should read 'SUBSCRIBE IMIA-WG1'.

Databases as Topic↗
PubMed1997

Aims and tasks of medical informatics.

Ten major long-term aims and tasks, so to speak 'grand challenges', for research in the field of medical informatics, including health informatics, are proposed and described. These are the further development of methods and tools of information processing for: (1) diagnostics ('the visible body'); (2) therapy ('medical intervention with as little strain on the patient as possible'); (3) therapy simulation; (4) early-recognition and prevention; (5) compensating physical handicaps; (6) health consulting ('the informed patient'); (7) health reporting; (8) health care information systems; (9) medical documentation and (10) comprehensive documentation of medical knowledge and knowledge-based decision support. Work is, in part, already in progress. To all these aims and tasks medical informatics can and may be should make substantial contributions. Prior to outlining the above aims and tasks, an account is given of the meaning of medical informatics, of the objective it pursues in general and of its achievements so far. The present paper intends to contribute to a broad public discussion of the aims and tasks for research in the field of medical informatics.

Artificial Intelligence↗
PubMed1997

The IMIA WG1 database on health and medical informatics programs and courses: a call for participation.

Working Group 1 on health and medical informatics education of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has established a WWW site (http:/(/)ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de/-d16) to provide up-to-date information about its work. The core of the site is an underlying database providing information on health and medical informatics (HMI) programs and courses worldwide. To be able to have a database of high quality and value we encourage all teachers and institutions to submit information about courses and programs on HMI education offered and to set pointers to their own WWW sites. In addition, a mailing list was installed to facilitate communication between all persons interested in HMI education. For subscription a message has to be sent to "listserv@listserv.net". The body of the message should read "SUBSCRIBE IMIA-WG1". Messages to the IMIA WG1 list have to be sent to "imia-wg1@urzinfo.urz.uni-heidelberg.de".

Computer Communication Networks↗
PubMed1996

Knowledge retrieval as one type of knowledge-based decision support in medicine: results of an evaluation study.

We report on a prospective, prolective observational study, supplying information on how physicians and other health care professionals retrieve medical knowledge on-line within the Heidelberg University Hospital information system. Within this hospital information system, on-line access to medical knowledge has been realised by installing a medical knowledge server in the range of about 24 GB and by providing access to it by health care professional workstations in wards, physicians' rooms, etc. During the study, we observed about 96 accesses per working day. The main group of health care professionals retrieving medical knowledge were physicians and medical students. Primary reasons for its utilisation were identified as support for the users' scientific work (50%), own clinical cases (19%), general medical problems (14%) and current clinical problems (13%). Health care professionals had accesses to medical knowledge bases such as MEDLINE (79%), drug bases ('Rote Liste', 6%), and to electronic text books and knowledge base systems as well. Sixty-five percent of accesses to medical knowledge were judged to be successful. In our opinion, medical knowledge retrieval can serve as a first step towards knowledge processing in medicine. We point out the consequences for the management of hospital information systems in order to provide the prerequisites for such a type of knowledge retrieval.

Computer Systems↗
PubMed1996

A systematic view on medical informatics.

Medical informatics is defined as the scientific discipline concerned with the systematic processing of data, information and knowledge in medicine and health care. The domain of medical informatics (including health informatics), its aim, methods and tools, and its relevance to other disciplines in medicine and health sciences are outlined. It is recognized that one of the major tasks of medical informatics is modelling processes. In this context, biological, communication, decision, engineering, educational, organizational and computational processes are distinguished and described.

Computer Communication Networks↗
PubMed1996

Health professional workstations and their integration in a hospital information system: the pragmatic approach MEDIAS.

Within the daily workload at a ward there is a considerable amount of information processing. It is the task of a systematic management of hospital information systems to provide health professionals with the right information in the right place at the right time. This paper deals with the consequences for the management of hospital information systems if health professional workstations are introduced as a means for this information logistic and with the experiences gained in the Heidelberg University Hospital. Health professional workstations are formally defined in the context of a three level graph-based model of hospital information systems. It is found that health professional workstations have communication needs not only on the physical level of computer systems in the hospital information system but also on the logical tool level, which is the level of application systems. On this level communication servers or brokers are of considerable importance. In Heidelberg there are about 200 health professional workstations (MEDIAS) in routine use.

Computer Communication Networks↗
PubMed1996

Medical informatics: once more towards systematization.

Commenting on a paper by Van Bemmel (Medical Informatics, Art or Science? [1]), the following questions are raised: What is the meaning of medical informatics?, How to systematize medical informatics?, is medical informatics an art, a science or a technology?. It is argued that medical informatics is concerned with the systematic processing of data, information and knowledge in medicine and health care, and that medical informatics is not just the application of computers in these fields. Three classifications for medical informatics research and education are presented. It is concluded that medical informatics is a scientific medical discipline, similar to surgery, internal medicine, epidemiology, or microbiology; and that medical informatics has a strong relationship with the health sciences concerning its field of application, and to informatics concerning its methods and tools. It is a cross-sectional discipline, with relevance for virtually all other specialties of medicine and the health sciences. This is the reason for its impact on research and education in these specialties. It also causes that the quality of the processing of data, information and knowledge has a direct and considerable effect upon the quality of health care in practically all these specialties.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed1996

Systematic planning of clinical documentation.

All information obtained from a patient in the course of medical care is a potential part of clinical documentation. The documentation usually serves a number of different purposes. The task of a documentation system is to fulfil these purposes in a methodically correct manner and as economically as possible. This requires that the properties of the documentation system be planned systematically with a view to the goals pursued. To support systematic planning, a "documentation protocol" is proposed analogous to the "study protocol" used for controlled clinical trials. The individual sections of the proposed documentation protocol are described and the design options which exist in the corresponding planning phases are pointed out. Experience gained by the application of the documentation protocol is discussed.

Data Collection↗
PubMed1995

The LBI-method for automated indexing of diagnoses by using SNOMED. Part 2. Evaluation.

We present a simple, formal, lexicon-based method for automated indexing of diagnoses based on the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED), called LBI-method. Part 1 gave an introduction to the LBI-method and presented its realisation as application system SALBIDH. Part 2 presents the design and the results of an evaluation study to judge the quality of the LBI-method. In this evaluation study the quality of automated indexing as well as the quality of the retrieval of patient data by using automated indexed diagnoses was examined. The results show that the retrieval based on SNOMED indices is at least as good as the retrieval based on ICD classes despite a lot of indexing errors. From this we gather that our system is not yet good enough for immediate routine use but that an appropriate indexing quality and, as a result, a higher retrieval quality can be achieved after few improvements of the LBI-method, especially after revision of the lexicons.

Abstracting and Indexing↗
PubMed1995

A three-level graph-based model for the management of hospital information systems.

Information processing in hospitals, especially in university hospitals, is currently faced with two major issues: low-cost hardware and progress in networking technology leads to a further decentralization of computing capacity, due to the increasing need for information processing in hospitals and due to economic restrictions, it is necessary to use commercial software products. This leads to heterogeneous hospital information systems using a variety of software and hardware products, and to a stronger demand for integrating these products and, in general, for a dedicated methodology for the management of hospital information systems to support patient care and medical research. We present a three-level graph-based model (3LGM) to support the systematic management of hospital information systems. 3LGM can serve as a basis for assessing the quality of information processing in hospitals. 3LGM distinguishes between a procedural level for describing the information procedures (and their information interchange) of a hospital information system and thus its functionality, a logical too level, focusing on application systems and communication links, and a physical tool level with physical subsystems (e.g., computer systems) and data transmission. The examples that are presented have been taken from the Heidelberg University Hospital Information System.

Computer Graphics↗
PubMed1995

Digital optical archiving of medical records in hospital information systems: results of a pilot (feasibility) study.

The paper-based medical record is a "principal repository for information" [1] and supports health care professionals in patient care, quality assessment, and often medical research. University hospitals often require expensive space for a long-time storage of medical records. The costs for operating conventional archives are high and will increase in future. In spite of these efforts, conventional archiving does not satisfy the medical needs to make available medical records for health care professionals in a systematic and timely manner.

Hospital Information Systems↗
PubMed1995

An integrated approach for mobile information processing in hospitals.

Computer-based mobile information processing in hospitals is at a turning point of becoming a substantial and integral part of hospital information systems. Its necessity and potential require a comprehensive systematic approach to support the needs of health care professionals and thus to contribute to high quality patient care and medical research. From the authors' point of view, standardized digital documents could become an appropriate basis for distributed mobile information processing in hospitals. An architecture for the integrated co-operative use of conventional, stationary, and mobile information tools is a major research topic at Heidelberg University. The objective of this paper is to present a departmental prototype design to establish mobile information processing as an integral part of hospital information systems through the use of standardized digital documents.

Computer Communication Networks↗