ABSTRACT
We report on a joint development effort between ALLTEL Information Services Health Care Division and IBM Worldwide Healthcare Industry to demonstrate concurrent clinical decision support using Arden Syntax at order-entry time. The goal of the partnership is to build a high performance CDS toolkit that may be easily customized for multiple health care enterprises. Our work uses and promotes open technologies and health care standards while building a generalizable interface to a legacy patient-care system and clinical database. This paper identifies four areas of design challenges and solutions unique to a concurrent order-entry environment: the clinical information model, the currency of the patient virtual chart, the granularity of event triggers and rule evaluation context, and performance.
Subject(s)
Hospital Information Systems , Medical Records Systems, Computerized , Therapy, Computer-Assisted , Artificial Intelligence , Computer Systems , Decision Support Techniques , Hospital Information Systems/standards , Humans , Medication Systems, Hospital , Programming Languages , Systems Integration , User-Computer InterfaceABSTRACT
As computer technology advances, clinicians and biomedical researchers are becoming more dependent upon information from online databases and information systems. By using specially configured computer workstations and high-speed computer networks, it is now possible to access this information in a rapid and straightforward manner. To empower users by providing these capabilities, the authors are assembling a variety of network workstations to be located throughout Yale-New Haven Medical Center. At the heart of the workstation is NetMenu, a program designed to help users connect to a number of important online information systems, including a hospital order entry and results reporting system, a drug reference, bibliographic retrieval systems, and educational programs. In addition, as part of the National Library of Medicine's Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) project, the authors have developed a local prototype of the UMLS Information Sources Map (ISM) and a companion query assistant program to complement the NetMenu in helping users select and connect automatically to information services relevant to a particular question. The ISM query assistant draws from a listing of many online information sources accessible via local and international networks.
Subject(s)
Online Systems , Unified Medical Language System , Computer Communication Networks , Humans , MEDLINE , Software , User-Computer InterfaceABSTRACT
NetMenu is a program, developed at Yale, which enables straightforward access to online information systems. NetMenu has been deployed in several diverse settings within our medical center. In the hospital, NetMenu is functioning as a front-end for our clinical workstation providing access to the hospital information system, the clinical laboratory computer, a drug database and several bibliographic databases. The medical libraries are utilizing NetMenu for both medical education workstations and for scholarly information workstations. This paper describes our initial experience in the implementation, support, and maintenance of NetMenu as an institutional menu of information sources.
Subject(s)
Academic Medical Centers/organization & administration , Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems , Online Systems , User-Computer Interface , Clinical Laboratory Information Systems , Connecticut , Humans , Local Area Networks , SoftwareABSTRACT
The paper describes a prototype information environment designed to link network-based information resources in an integrated fashion and thus enhance the information capabilities of an academic medical center. The prototype was implemented on a single Macintosh computer to permit exploration of the overall "information architecture" and to demonstrate the various desired capabilities prior to full-scale network-based implementation. At the heart of the prototype are two components: a diverse set of information resources available over an institutional computer network and an information sources map designed to assist users in finding and accessing information resources relevant to their needs. The paper describes these and other components of the prototype and presents a scenario illustrating its use. The prototype illustrates the link between the goals of two National Library of Medicine initiatives, the Integrated Academic Information Management System (IAIMS) and the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS).
