Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 08:15:11 +0100 (MET)
Message-Id: <199601050715.IAA25470@solair4b.eunet.be>
To: medibib-l@uni-muenster.de
From: maesv@pophost.eunet.be (Vincent Maes)
Subject: FYI - Health Info article
>Journal of the American Society for Information Science
>Vol.46, No.10; December 1995
>ISSN: 0002-8231
>
>Information Needs of Physicians
> by Paul N Gorman..............................................729-736
>Abstract: Quantitative estimates of physician information need reported in
>the literature vary by orders of magnitude. This article offers a
>framework for explicitly defining the types of information that clinicians
>use and the various states of information that clinicians use and the
>various states of information need on which different studies have focused.
> Published reports seem to be in agreement that physicians have many
>clinical questions in the course of patient care, but most of their
>questions are never answered. Examination of the clinical questions are
>never answered. Examination of the clinical questions themselves reveals
>that they tend to be highly complex, embedded in the context of a unique
>patient's story. The heavy reliance of physicians on human sources of
>information has implications for the nature of their information needs,
>including the narrative structure of their knowledge and the need for more
>than information alone when solving clinical problems. Evaluation of
>clinical information systems must move beyond measures of the relevance of
>retrieved information to assessing the extent to which information systems
>help practitioners solve the clinical problems they face in practice.
>
>The Medical Literature as a Resource for Health Care Practice
> by K Ann McKibbon, Nancy Wilczynski, Robert S Hayward, Cynthia j
> Walker-Dilds and R Brian Haynes...............................737-742
>Abstract: Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is an approach to health care that
>promotes the collection, interpretation, and integration of valid,
>important and applicable patient-reported, clinician-observed, and
>research-derived evidence. The best available evidence, moderated by
>patient circumstances and preferences, is applied to improve the quality of
>clinical judgements. The Health Information Research Unit of McMaster
>University Faculty of Health Sciences in conjunction with others at
>McMaster and elsewhere has developed, evaluated, and made more accessible
>information tools to facilitate the practice of EBM. These include users'
>guides to the medical literature, strategies for improving the yield of
>MEDLINE searches, standardized formats for abstracts of journal articles
>and guidelines, new journals, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and
>software tools that bring high quality information to the point of clinical
>decision making. This article discusses these and other EBM resources for
>health care professionals.
>
>Information Retrieval in Medicine: The SAPHIRE Experience
> by William R Hersh and David Hickam...........................743-747
>Abstract: Information retrieval systems are being used increasingly in
>biomedical settings, but many problems still exist in indexing, retrieval,
>and evaluation. The SAPHIRE Project was undertaken to seek solutions for
>these problems. This article summarizes the evaluation studies that have
>been done with SAPHIRE, highlighting the lessons learned and laying out the
>challenges ahead to all medical information retrieval efforts.
>
>Full-Text Databases in Medicine
> by MaryEllen C Sievert , Emma Jean McKinin and E Diane
> Johnson.......................................................748-754
>Abstract: The wide variety of full-text databases pertinent to medicine
>requires classification. The first distinction to be made is between those
>full-text databases which are full-text retrievable only and those which
>are both full-text retrievable and full-text searchable. The full-text
>searchable files may be further divided into four major groups: 1) The
>electronic version of factual books or directories; 2) those which reproduce
>textbooks and reference books; 3) the hybrid - often mixtures of full-text
>and bibliographic records; and 4) the full-text of medical journal
>articles. The software for searching full-text medical databases varies
>from vendor to vendor. More than 400 journal titles in full-text were
>available as of April 1995 but no one system contained all the full-text
>medical journal titles. Little research has been done on the efficacy of
>using full-text databases in the biomedical arena. The MEDLINE/Full-Text
>Project represents a multi-year effort to learn about the heuristics for
>searching full-text files of medical journal articles.
>
>Automated Retrieval from Multiple Disparate Information Sources: The World
>Wide Web and the NLM's Sourcerer Project
> by R P Channing Rodgers.......................................755-764
>Abstract: The burgeoning amount of information available via the Internet
>has heightened awareness of the need for improved tools for resource
>identification. The U.S. National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Sourcerer
>project is developing software which accepts a user query, automatically
>identifies appropriate information resources, and facilitates connection to
>those sources for information retrieval. The current Sourcerer prototype
>utilizes the multimedia/multiplatform/multiprotocol network-based hypertext
>system known as World Wide Web. It also relies on the knowledge sources of
>the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). The UMLS is the result of a
>long-term project of NLM. It comprises a large Metathesaurus of
>biomedical concepts (coupled with a semantic network and
>syntactical/lexical software tools) and the Information Sources Map (ISM),
>a database of records describing specific biomedical information resources.
>Recent advances in the standardization of information exchange over
>computer networks, coupled with the tools provided by UMLS, facilitate
>query refinement and augmentation, connection to resources, and retrieval
>from resources. Daunting challenges remain with respect to optimizing
>resource descriptions, defining optimal algorithms for searching for
>sources, optimizing user interface design, and organizing retrieved
>information.
>
>An Infrastructure for the Development of Health Care Information Systems
>from Distributed Components
> by Stephan R A Deibel and Robert A Greenes....................765-771
>Abstract: Over the past several years, the Decision Systems Group has
>worked to develop software tools that facilitate the construction of highly
>integrated, customizable health care information systems and clinical
>workstation environments. Today's medical software industry is based
>primarily on large, single-vendor systems with relatively poor integration
>capabilities, and has not yet embraced newer approaches which could foster
>rich integration and customization of multi-vendor "component-based"
>systems. This is due in large part to lack of common software
>infrastructure, services, and paradigms. With the aim of providing
>ourselves and our collaborators with the ability to construct richly
>interoperating software components in the near-term, we have developed a
>suite of cross-platform software tools, collectively referred to as
>Arachne. These tools are being distributed freely to the Internet
>community, and are the basis for ongoing investigation of the component
>software development paradigm. This approach has a number of advantages
>for future health care information systems.
>
>The Electronic Medical Record: Promises and Problems
> by William R Hersh............................................772-776
>Abstract: Despite the growth of computer technology in medicine, most
>medical encounters are still documented on paper medical records. The
>electronic medical record has numerous documented benefits, yet its use is
>still sparse. This article describes the state of electronic medical
>records, their advantage over existing paper records, the problems
>impending their implementation, and concerns over their security and
>confidentiality.
>
>Vocabulary and Health Care Information Technology: State of the Art
> by James J Cimino.............................................777-782
>Abstract: Controlled medical vocabularies are at the heart of almost all
>health care computing applications. This article reviews all the
>vocabularies available today and some of the reasons why they have failed to
>meet the needs of application developers. Also described is some of the
>current work being done to address short comings in previous vocabulary
>content and structure.
>
>Consumer Health Informatics: Health Information Technology for Consumers
> by Holly Brugge Jimison and Paul Phillip Sher.................783-790
>Abstract: Consumer health informatics represents a diverse field devoted to
>the development, implementation, and research on telecommunication and
>computer applications designed for consumers to access information on a
>wide variety of health care topics. This technology, both hardware and
>software, is part of a growing trend toward empowering consumers to take a
>more active role in their own health care and to provide the necessary
>information to enhance their decision making. Research indicates that
>access to health information enables patients to be more active participants
>in the treatment process, which can lead to better medical outcomes. This
>article covers the technology advances, the computer programs that are
>currently available, and the basic research that addresses both the
>effectiveness of computer health informatics and its impact on the future
>direction of health care.
Vincent Maes
Pfizer
(Belgian Institute for Health Economics)
102, rue Leon Theodor
B-1090 Bruxelles (Belgium)
Tel : +32 2 423.07.12 / 423.07.68
Fax : +32 2 423.07.93
e-mail : maesv@pophost.eunet.be