Basic Requirements of Multimedia Medical Information Systems for the Management of Clinical Patient Data

Abstract

At present in medicine we have, on the one hand, medical information systems (MISs) and, on the other, pictorial information systems (PISs). MISs are based on traditional database management systems (for instance, the relational one, e.g., [1]) and hence are able to manage structured data (i.e., numerals and strings), whereas PISs are built on top of image database management systems and hence are able to deal with images as a whole (e.g., [2]). At present almost all clinical divisions of hospitals are equipped with a MIS. However, PISs are used mainly in those contexts where the management of images is the primary activity (namely, in digital radiology and angiography, in echography, in magnetic resonance, and so on). Substantial differences also exist between MISs and PISs in terms of functions offered, objectives pursued, and the hardware technology required to achieve good performance Despite such differences a large research and development effort is being carried on with the aim of providing a new generation of ISs, integrating and generalizing functions of existing MISs and PISs. Such new systems are expected to better support the medical staff in the automatic management of patient data and hence to improve the quality of patient health care assistance. The practical attainability of such a goal requires that the cost of powerful graphical workstations equipped with optical storage devices become cheaper, and at the same time that the basic requirements of these systems be clearly stated.