title: Advanced patient information systems and medical concept representation.
abstract: With ubiquitous networked computer based patient information systems, the conventional technology reaches a sound barrier: problems of recall and precision curtail the efficiency gains in data retrieval as the number of data sources and the amount of data in them increases; concerns for privacy protection meet the limits of conventional means as the entropy of the data collections and the number of persons implicated by them increases. We propose that these shortcomings will require additional features for advanced patient information systems, and that medical concept representation has a key role in overcoming these deficiencies. After substantiating the evidence for the need, we outline a means for improvement through medical concept representation. We conclude by discussing the current state of alternatives for medical concept representation and propose that the methodology for resolution of the identified impediments is available.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Moehr
authors.forename: E H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Kluge
authors.forename: V L
authors.initials: VL
authors.lastname: Patel
mesh_terms: D004992:Ethics, Medical; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled