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Supplement 23 to DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications for Medicine), Structured Reporting, is a specification that supports a semantically rich representation of image and waveform content, enabling experts to share image and related patient information. DICOM SR supports the representation of textual and coded data linked to images and waveforms. Nevertheless, the medical information technology community needs models that work as bridges between the DICOM relational model and open object-oriented [...]

The benefits of computerized physician order entry have been widely recognized, although few institutions have successfully installed these systems. Obstacles to successful implementation are organizational as well as technical. In the spring of 2000, following a 4-year period of planning and customization, a 9-month pilot project, and a 14-month hiatus for year 2000, the Ohio State University Health System extensively implemented physician order entry across inpatient units. Implementation for specialty [...]

In addition to providing new capabilities, the introduction of technology in complex, sociotechnical systems, such as health care and aviation, can have unanticipated side effects on technical, social, and organizational dimensions. To identify potential accidents in the making, the authors looked for side effects from a natural experiment, the implementation of bar code medication administration (BCMA), a technology designed to reduce adverse drug events (ADEs).

Clinical information systems typically present patient data in chronologic order, organized by the source of the information (e.g., laboratory, radiology). This study evaluates the functionality and utility of a knowledge-based system that generates concept-oriented views (organized around clinical concepts such as disease or organ system) of clinical data.

In medical informatics research, study questions frequently involve individuals who are grouped into clusters. For example, an intervention may be aimed at a clinician (who treats a cluster of patients) with the intention of improving the health of individual patients. Correlation among individuals within a cluster can lead to incorrect estimates of the sample size required to detect an effect and inappropriate estimates of the confidence intervals and the statistical [...]

The 2001 debate of the American College of Medical Informatics focused on the proposition that national regulatory mandate of computer-based provider order entry (CPOE), to take effect by the end of 2005, portends greater benefit than risk for health care delivery. Both sides accepted that provider order entry offers potential benefit. Those supporting the proposition emphasized public safety, noting that payers have little economic incentive to pay for quality and [...]

The Patient-Centered Access to Secure Systems Online (PCASSO) project is designed to apply state-of-the-art-security to the communication of clinical information over the Internet.

In January 2000, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) cosponsored an invitational workshop entitled "Medical Informatics and Health Services Research: Bridging the Gap." Planned by a small committee of representatives from NLM and AHRQ institutional training centers, the workshop was designed to address the need for education of researchers interested in working at the intersection of the fields of medical informatics [...]

The events that followed the launch of Sputnik on Oct 4, 1957, provide a metaphor for the events that are following the first bioterroristic case of pulmonary anthrax in the United States. This paper uses that metaphor to elucidate the nature of the task ahead and to suggest questions such as, Can the goals of the biodefense effort be formulated as concisely and concretely as the goal of the space [...]