Kerstin Maximini

An investigation of generalized cases

In the CBR literature from the past 25 years there is a considerable amount of research work that makes use of cases that are subspaces of some representation space rather than points in it. For cases of that kind, different terms have been used such as generalized case, prototype, schema, script, or abstract case. Our analysis of selected publications yields that on the one hand the same term is used for different concepts and on the other hand different terms are used for more or less the same concepts. So our goal is to improve the conceptual clarity by proposing an integrated classification schema for cases. We then use this schema to describe semantically founded ways for similarity definition and computation, depending on the class membership of query and case.

Case-based support for collaborative business

This paper describes the development of the generic collaboration support architecture CAKE incorporating case-based reasoning (CBR). CAKE provides unified access to knowledge available within an organization, and CBR technology is used throughout the system to distribute this knowledge to agents as required. Adaptive workflows and collaboration patterns selected by a CBR process are introduced for explicitly describing collaboration among agents. In order to guide the technical design of the architecture, a systematic analysis of the requirements for collaboration support has been performed in various application domains.

LENUS - The Hospital Content Management System

Optimizing the administrative processes in modern hospitals is a challenging field in medical informatics. In this paper we present LENUS an enterprise content management system specialized on medical and administrative processes in hospitals. Its is an integrated system that supports tasks like management of electronic patient files, inbound management and clinical pathways. By providing HL7 and DICOM interfaces it can easily be integrated into existing PACS and HIS environments

A framework for radiological assistant systems

The market for health care systems supporting physicians and improving their daily routine is dynamically growing. The development of these systems makes great demands on the handling of medical knowledge, like anatomical and process knowledge. In this paper, a special approach for the radiological domain is presented. Our framework includes mechanisms to store medical knowledge in different knowledge containers, whose importance varies from application to application, and to support the execution of the processes. Three applications are introduced by way of example. We analyze these application scenarios to find the knowledge-intensive tasks that can be supported by an assistant system. The implemented solutions are integrated in the daily work of our radiological partner hospitals.

Collaborative agent-based knowledge support for empirical and knowledge-intense processes

Independent from specific application domains, similar requirements can be identified regarding information needs during daily work. For coping with generality on the one hand and domain specificity on the other hand the Collaborative Agent-based Knowledge Engine CAKE is currently developed that combines agent and workflow technology in an innovative way. Agent technology is used for integrating various services, whereas workflow technology is used for coordinating collaboration among agents.

A clinical report management system based upon the DICOM structured report standard

Computer based report systems have proven their utility in improving health care delivery. However the majority of these systems do not comply with any standard for codification, storage and transference of medical data, thus making difficult the interchange of data between different health institutions. This paper describes the development of a user-friendly report editor that produces documents compliant to the DICOM Structured Report-DICOM SR-standard. The strategy chosen to develop the editor was to combine a documentation template editor with a report instance editor that allows the use of previously built templates to ease the process of creating reports. The developed template editor helps the user though building report structures by indicating which information items are needed in order to document a particular type of examination and suggesting values for the information items. The report instance editor represents reports in an easily understandable graphical visualization, and allows the user to create and edit structured reports permitting the use of templates as start-points. It also contains mechanisms to let the user set other documents information required to make it compliant to the DICOM SR standard. The editor is integrated into a DICOM server/client environment and can also be used as a client to other DICOM-SR compliant PACS systems. The report editor developed was already presented to the clinical staff of a community hospital in southern Brazil, where it is intended to be installed, used, and evaluated by the medical staff.

Workshop on current aspects of knowledge management in medicine (KMM05)

Traditional Knowledge Management systems in the medical field mainly focus on medical knowledge and problem solving like diagnosis, prognosis, therapy planning and critiquing, image processing with image classification, and teaching or practising medical knowledge. Today, also economical, organizational, and quality aspects move into the centre of medical knowledge management, such as efficiency, analysis, and optimisation of hospital processes, workflow management and collaborative treatments by physicians of remote health care facilities. Using the changing accounting system based on flat rates, health care organizations have to change their operating philosophies to become profitable, enterprise-like organizations.