Looking for unstructured links in computerised medical records: application of hypertext vs. the keying approach

摘要

Medical records are mainly based on textual content. When a patient is discharged from hospital, letters summarising the treatment are prepared. This paper presents a detailed design study and discusses a new approach to tackling the known problem of storing and retrieving these letters. Originally, text information retrieval methods were used, but due to the enormous volume of the databases these techniques are found cumbersome and inefficient. In this research we present a new approach based on expert hypertext principles. This approach is based on a new methodology of three-part analysis of the text. By this analysis we look for unstructured parts that can be represented in a framed-based expert system and connected by hypertext links. The method can be a useful tool for making large file volume texts available to practitioners and researchers in the hospital environment, and serves as a beneficial tool in the information retrieval arena.