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A general framework for representation of clinical data that provides a declarative semantics of terms and that allows developers to define explicitly the relationships among both terms and combinations of terms.

The Canon Group is an informal organization of medical informatics researchers who are working on the problem of developing a "deeper" representation formalism for use in exchanging data and developing applications. Individuals in the group represent experts in such areas as knowledge representation and computational linguistics, as well as in a variety of medical subdisciplines. All share the view that current mechanisms for the characterization of medical phenomena are either [...]

Develop standard terms and codes for recording nursing care information in patient records to permit relevant data to be abstracted into a shared database for effectiveness research.

Evaluate the accuracy of the detailed diagnostic reasoning of the Heart Failure Program incorporating a new mechanism to handle temporal relationships and severity constraints.

Direct computer-based physician order entry has been the subject of debate for over 20 years. Many sites have implemented systems successfully. Others have failed outright or flirted with disaster, incurring substantial delays, cost overruns, and threatened work actions. The rationale for physician order entry includes process improvement, support of cost-conscious decision making, clinical decision support, and optimization of physicians' time. Barriers to physician order entry result from the changes required [...]

To analyze the terms used by nurses in a variety of data sources and to test the feasibility of using SNOMED III to represent nursing terms.

A major obstacle to establishing a computer-stored medical record is the lack of "standards" that would permit government, care providers, insurance companies, and medical computer system developers to share patient data easily. In this position paper, the Board of Directors of the American Medical Informatics Association recommends specific approaches to standardization in the areas of patient, provider, and site of care identifiers; computerized health care message exchange; medical record content [...]