An Object-Oriented Model for a Visual Information System of Patient Folders

In this paper we present an information model - the MIC/MIE model - able to represent the heterogeneous data composing a patient folder related to clinical activities. The management of clinical data is a complex task. In fact, patient related information reported in patient folders is a set of heterogeneous documents accessed by different user having different goals (e.g. choice of a therapeutic strategy, quality assessment) and may be rendered by means of different modalities. Data can originate from direct observations made by physicians like in the case of objective examination. In other cases physiologic phenomena are captured by means of the involved electrical activity (like in the ease of heart or brain activity), whereas anatomical structure details are obtained by means of radiologic techniques. The proposed model adopts an object-oriented approach. It is able to represent multimedia nature of patient folder data. This model has an adequate flexibility for adapting the most different clinical environment. It allows the physician to structure the information needed for his patient folder without employing a programming language. Finally we show some features of the CADMIO system, a tool for designing patient folder management systems, based on this model.