title: A software engineering approach for medical workstations development.
abstract: Multimedia medical workstations represent the natural tool for accessing the hospital information system environment. They are complex medical systems that have to gather, in a single framework, a large collection of components dealing with multimedia medical objects. To remain current with both medical practice and with advances in the computer science field, they have to allow the iterative addition of new functions to the set of existing ones. In this paper, after a survey of commonly required medical workstation functional components, we shall try to discuss how a software engineering approach can streamline the development of a medical workstation. Different software engineering tools needed to build the functional components of a workstation are described. Their integration in a single dedicated environment is considered through four perspectives: data, presentation, communication and control. Benefits and limitations of an object-oriented approach are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Medical Informatics Department, Broussais University Hospital, Paris, France.
authors.forename: F C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Jean
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lavril
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lemaitre
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sauquet
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Degoulet
mesh_terms: D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D003628:Database Management Systems; D003660:Decision Support Systems, Management; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D016490:Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems; D012984:Software; D012985:Software Design; D014584:User-Computer Interface