Dealing with an information overload of health science data: structured utilisation of libraries, distributed knowledge in databases and Web content.

The organizational structures of web contents and electronic information resources must adapt to the demands of a growing volume of information and user requirements. Otherwise the information society will be threatened by disinformation. The biomedical sciences are especially vulnerable in this regard, since they are strongly oriented toward text-based knowledge sources.

Advanced Information Retrieval Using XML Standards.

The bulk of clinical data is available in an electronic form. About 80% of the electronic data, however, is narrative text and therefore limited with respect to machine interpretation. As a result, the discussion has shifted from "electronic versus paper based data" towards "structured versus unstructured electronic data".

Standardized Semantic Markup for Reference Terminologies, Thesauri and Coding Systems: Benefits for distributed E-Health Applications.

With the introduction of the ICD-10 as the standard for diagnosis, the development of an electronic representation of its complete content, inherent semantics and coding rules is necessary. Our concept refers to current efforts of the CEN/TC 251 to establish a European standard for hierarchical classification systems in healthcare. We have developed an electronic representation of the ICD-10 with the extensible Markup Language (XML) that facilitates the integration in current information systems or coding software taking into account different languages and versions.

Implementing health care systems using XML standards.

Most healthcare data is narrative text and often not accessible and easy to find at the clinical workstation. XML related standards (XML schema, XForms, XSL, Topic Maps, etc.) provide an infrastructure that might change the situation.

Discharge and referral data exchange using global standards--the SCIPHOX project in Germany.

The goal of the German project "Standardization of Communication between Information Systems in Physician Offices and Hospitals using XML" (aka SCIPHOX) is to provide an XML based information exchange between Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and Physician Office Systems (POS). HL7's Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) was chosen to serve as the "backbone" specification. The CDA is an ANSI approved document architecture for exchange of clinical information using XML.

Supporting clinical practice guidelines: lifecycle of guidelines for oncology within an XML-based guideline framework.

Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) have become important instruments for supporting patient care. Many structure models for CPGs have been developed to explicitly gain structured CPG documents, some of them using XML. Often, however, problems arise in filling these structures with content and integrating CPG applications into an EPR/HIS The Universities of Giessen and Heidelberg have each presented an XML-based CPG structure, which are actually being merged into one.

Indexing of Internet resources in order to improve the provision of problem-relevant medical information.

Due to the information overload and the unstructured access to (medical) information of the internet, it isn't hardly possible to find problem-relevant medical information in an appropriate time (e.g. during a consultation).

Representation of relationships between data in healthcare documents.

In healthcare data are to a large extent represented in narrative textual documents. The analysis of narrative text has not been solved successfully up to now. The results of natural language processing or fully indexing systems have not been completely satisfying.

Accurate searching using XML and topic maps.

Most clinical data is narrative text and often not accessible and searchable at the clinical workstation. We have therefore developed a search engine that allows indexing, searching and linking different kinds of data using web technologies. Text matching methods fail to represent implicit relationships between data, e.

Knowledge representation in digital medical documents for efficient information access and retrieval.

Information access and retrieval are essential to serve the delivery and application of evidence-based medicine. The literature provides evidence for the effectiveness of computerization of medical knowledge for increasing compliance with current standards and improving patient outcomes. But all efforts in implementing knowledge-based functions remain limited in respect of either the prolonged exposure to live clinical use, the complexity of knowledge content supported, the dependencies on a technology platform and host system, or the proof of use and content sharing across multiple and varying environments.

Discharge and referral data exchange using global standards--the SCIPHOX project in Germany.

The goal of the German project "Standardization of Communication between Information Systems in Physician Offices and Hospitals using XML" (aka SCIPHOX) in its first phase is to provide information exchange based on the Extended Markup Language XML between Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and Physician Office Systems (POS). The Clinical Document Architecture (CDA), a standard developed by the Health Level Seven organization (HL7), was chosen to serve as the "backbone" specification. The CDA is an ANSI approved document architecture for exchange of clinical information using XML.

Linking clinical data using XML topic maps.

Most clinical data is narrative text and often not accessible and searchable at the clinical workstation. We have therefore developed a search engine that allows indexing, searching and linking different kinds of data using web technologies. Text matching methods fail to represent implicit relationships between data, e.

Transparent ICD and DRG coding using information technology: linking and associating information sources with the eXtensible Markup Language.

With the introduction of ICD-10 as the standard for diagnostics, it becomes necessary to develop an electronic representation of its complete content, inherent semantics, and coding rules. The authors' design relates to the current efforts by the CEN/TC 251 to establish a European standard for hierarchical classification systems in health care. The authors have developed an electronic representation of ICD-10 with the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) that facilitates integration into current information systems and coding software, taking different languages and versions into account.

XML representation of hierarchical classification systems: from conceptual models to real applications.

With the introduction of the ICD-10 as the standard for diagnosis, the development of an electronic representation of its complete content, inherent semantics and coding rules is necessary. Our concept refers to current efforts of the CEN/TC 251 to establish a European standard for hierarchical classification systems in healthcare. We have developed an electronic representation of the ICD-10 with the extensible Markup Language (XML) that facilitates the integration in current information systems or coding software taking into account different languages and versions.

Plug-and-play XML: a health care perspective.

The application of XML (Extensible Markup Language) is still costly. The authors present an approach to ease the development of XML applications. They have developed a Web-based framework that combines existing XML resources into a comprehensive XML application.