title: Towards interoperability of heterogeneous health databases: application to a tumor samples bank.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  to define principles and methods that allow heterogeneous database in the health sector to be interoperable.
  
  
  METHODS
  to design a component-based middleware able to provide flexible and efficient means of communication between end-users and databases, and that exploits the standard nomenclatures of the health sector.
  
  
  RESULTS
  according to these principles, to implement a prototype of a tumor sample bank in the University hospitals of Marseille, France.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  to discuss the benefits that the approach brings and the progress in prototyping.
authors.affiliation: LERTIM, Faculté de Médicine, Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France. Michel.Joubert@ap-hm.fr
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Joubert
authors.forename: Jean-Charles
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Dufour
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Falco
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aymard
authors.forename: Marius
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fieschi
mesh_terms: D003199:Computer Systems; D019992:Databases as Topic / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005602:France; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008331:Management Information Systems; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D012984:Software; D014015:Tissue Banks; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled