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Biomedical subjects

J R Scherrer

Publications and source records attributed to J R Scherrer.

119 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
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Medical dictionaries for patient encoding systems: a methodology.

Medical language is highly compositional and makes extensive use of common roots, especially Latino-Greek roots. Besides words devoted to common sense, medical language presents some typical characteristics, especially on morphological and semantic aspects of word formation. Morphological decomposition and identification precedes semantic analysis. It is only when these two prerequisites are fulfilled that an attempt to grasp the meaning of a whole expression is made possible. The main aim of the proposed approach is that of coping with 'the lack of coverage of the medical lexical knowledge', in order to help physicians find the correct international classification for diseases (ICD) codes for a written diagnosis. The proposed methodology allows the development of a powerful dynamic dictionary dedicated to natural language processing in the field of diagnoses and narrative procedures. It describes the design of an analyser that can profit from a dictionary. The methods used have proved to be efficient for various classifications, s well as for multiple languages, as the system presently supports French, German, English and Dutch for ICD-9 and ICD-10 classifications.

Classification↗
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Telematics techniques for image based diagnosis, therapy planning and monitoring.

This paper is intended to describe and illustrate some of the actual use of telematics related techniques together with modern biomedical imaging capabilities for helping in diagnosis, as well as for the planning and monitoring of therapy. To this end, most current imaging modalities are initially introduced. Then it is shown how telematics related techniques are necessary to improve the outcome of current image-based protocols. Such techniques allow data, means, or competencies--which may intrinsically be of a complementary nature or distributed at many different locations--to be integrated together and transcend the simple sum of individual expectations. Examples of actual implementations are given in the fields of radio-oncology, neurosurgery and orthopedics. To conclude, the papers and posters presented in the corresponding session of the MIE'97 symposium are summarized to provide further telematics references for the reader.

Aged↗
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Natural language generation of surgical procedures.

A number of compositional Medical Concept Representation systems are being developed. Although these provide for a detailed conceptual representation of the underlying information, they have to be translated back to natural language for used by end-users and applications. The GALEN programme has been developing one such representation and we report here on a tool developed to generate natural language phrases from the GALEN conceptual representations. This tool can be adapted to different source modelling schemes and to different destination languages or sublanguages of a domain. It is based on a multilingual approach to natural language generation, realised through a clean separation of the domain model from the linguistic model and their link by well defined structures. Specific knowledge structures and operations have been developed for bridging between the modelling 'style' of the conceptual representation and natural language. Using the example of the scheme developed for modelling surgical operative procedures within the GALEN-IN-USE project, we show how the generator is adapted to such a scheme. The basic characteristics of the surgical procedures scheme are presented together with the basic principles of the generation tool. Using worked examples, we discuss the transformation operations which change the initial source representation into a form which can more directly be translated to a given natural language. In particular, the linguistic knowledge which has to be introduced--such as definitions of concepts and relationships is described. We explain the overall generator strategy and how particular transformation operations are triggered by language-dependent and conceptual parameters. Results are shown for generated French phrases corresponding to surgical procedures from the urology domain.

Linguistics↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Towards specialised middleware for healthcare information systems.

Middleware is now a commonly used expression and anyone building distributed applications is referring to 'middleware services'. Nevertheless this notion lacks of sound theoretical foundation. This paper tries to clarify the relationship between the components of distributed environments, especially in healthcare and to establish some classification aiming at gaining a common understanding of the functionality and interdependency of the existing modules of distributed environments. A case study is presented and the potential benefits of using a middleware approach are discussed.

Computer Communication Networks↗
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Organizing the clinical data in the medical record.

We have developed a method of collecting and arranging clinical data that makes the medical record more useful in patient care and research. The design is based on two principles: that detailed clinical findings should be recorded independently of any diagnostic interpretation, and that time should be integrated as a dimension of the medical record. Analysis of the principal components of the medical record as we have organized it allows identification of clinical entities on the basis of synchronous or sequential features and facilitates precise tracking of symptoms, evaluation of therapeutic effects, comparison of treatments, identification of patients at risk of recurrence, transmission of observations from physician to physician, and analysis and reinterpretation of the observations recorded.

Ambulatory Care↗
PubMedDate not supplied

An integrated hospital information system in Geneva.

Since the initial design phase from 1971 to 1973, the DIOGENE hospital information system at the University Hospital of Geneva has been treated as a whole and has retained its architectural unity, despite the need for modification and extension over the years. In addition to having a centralized patient database with the mechanisms for data protection and recovery of a transaction-oriented system, the DIOGENE system has a centralized pool of operators who provide support and training to the users; a separate network of remote printers that provides a telex service between the hospital buildings, offices, medical departments, and wards; and a three-component structure that avoids barriers between administrative and medical applications. In 1973, after a 2-year design period, the project was approved and funded. The DIOGENE system has led to more efficient sharing of costly resources, more rapid performance of administrative tasks, and more comprehensive collection of information about the institution and its patients.

Computer Systems↗