Warner Hr

An Event Model of Medical Information Representation

Objective : Develop a model for structured and encoded representation of medical information that supports human review, decision support applications, ad hoc queries, statistical analysis, and natural-language processing. Design : A medical information representation model was developed from manual and semiautomated analysis of patient data. The key assumption of the model is that medical information can be represented as a series of linked events. The event representation has two main components. The first component is a frame or template definition that specifies the attributes of the event. The second component is a structured vocabulary, the terms of which are taken as the values of the slots in the event template structure. Individual event instances are linked by specific named relationships. Results : The proposed model was used to represent a chest-radiograph report. Conclusions : The event model of medical information representation provides a mechanism for formal definition of the logical structure of medical data and allows explicit time-oriented and associative relationships between event instances.

ILIAD: An Expert System for Diagnostic Assistance and Teaching: Implementation in France

Iliad is an expert system written in C for the Macintosh computer. The system operates in two modes: as an expert consultant to teach differential diagnosis and as knowledge-based patient case simulator to teach and test medical problem solving. An approach was proposed to create and maintain, in a syncronized fashion, a French version of the Iliad system. The French version is now being evaluated at the Faculte Lariboisiere Saint-Louis school of medicine and its evolution follows faithfully that of the master English version.