Standards of Excellence: Finalists Papers from the Student Paper Competition: Standardizing Access to Computer-Based Medical Resources

摘要

Methods of using computer-based medical resources efficiently have previously required either the user to manage the choice of resource and terms, or specialized programming to access each individual resource. Standardized descriptions of what resources can do and how they may be accessed would allow the creation of an interface for multiple resources. This interface would assist a user in formulating queries, accessing the resources and managing the results. This paper describes a working Interactive Query Workstation (IQW). The IQW allows users to query multiple resources: a medical knowledge base (DXplain*), a clinical database (COSTAR/MQL*), a bibliographic database (MEDLINE*), a cancer database (PDQ*), and a drug interaction database (PDR*). The IQW has evolved from requiring alteration of resource code to using off-the-shelf products (Kappa* & Microsoft® Windows) to control resources. Descriptions of each resource were developed to allow IQW to access these resources. There are three components to these descriptions; information on how data is sent and received from a resource, information on types of queries to which a resource can respond, and information on what types of information are needed to execute a query. These components form the basis of a standard description of resources.