Health Telematics (AIM) Final Report


	Updated: Feb 1, 97
GALEN

Generalised Architecture for Language Encyclopaedias and Nomenclature in Medicine

Project Code: A2012

Project value: 4433 KECU

EC contribution: 3100 KECU

No of partners: 12

No of countries: 7

Duration: 36 months

Contact:
Dr. Alan Rector
Manchester University
Dept. Computer Science
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL, U.K.
Tel.: +44-61-275.61.88 / 33
Fax: +44-61-275.62.36
E-mail: rector@cs.man.ac.uk

Overview

GALEN developed practical tools and techniques for managing medical language and terminology. It provided a foundation on which to build the next generation of clinical information and electronic patient record systems- enabling technologies to allow clinical information to be captured, represented, manipulated, and displayed in radically more powerful ways.

Purpose and objectives

The problem of terminology is particularly important for European Healthcare Telematics. Not only must European Healthcare Telematics deal with extremely large and complex organisations made up of diverse professional staff with diverse requirements, cultures and experience, but European Healthcare Telematics must also cope with the further diversity of the many different cultural and linguistic groups. To be acceptable, systems must be adaptable to local needs without imposing rigid uniformity of language or practice. To achieve consensus without imposing uniformity in language or cultural approach, new tools are required. Terminology services for clinical information systems are amongst the fundamental problems to be solved when dealing with medical records, hospital information systems, distributed data-bases and departmental systems. GALEN is developing the foundations of the next generation of clinical information and medical record system- practical techniques to allow clinical information to be captured, represented, manipulated, exchanged and displayed in radically more powerful ways by health care professionals. The project has developed tools for managing and manipulating medical languages and terminology which are re-usable, relatively application independent, and multilingual. It is providing new levels of support for inter-operability and information-sharing amongst clinical systems. Galen's techniques allow systems to be tailored rapidly to individual needs with respect to language, coding systems, and the level of the details recorded and yet guarantee that they remain coherent and able to share common information and resources.

Results

GALEN has produced six kinds of products:

Terminology servers, to manipulate, terminology, coding systems and medical language using models of clinical concepts. The servers perform transformation between different coding systems and database schemata.
Models of medical concepts and terminology- the Core Model-built in a formally sound language, along with associate lexicons, mapping to existing coding systems and other auxiliary information.
Methodologies and tools for the co-operative development and maintenance of the Core model.
Clinical users interfaces and medical record systems to produce efficient data entry and information retrieval systems for direct use by clinicians.
Classification managers, which provide new tools for developers of coding and classification systems.
Authoring tools for creating and maintaining decision support systems.

GALEN's Terminology services are a pervasive enabling technology which make new things possible-new interfaces tailored to the needs of healthcare professionals, new decision support systems based on linking medical records and knowledge based systems.

Six families of applications are expected to make use of the GALEN Terminology server and Core Model:

Medical records, clinical user interfaces and clinical information systems
Natural language understanding and translation systems
Clinical decision support systems
Management of, and conversion amongst, coding and classification schemes
Bibliographic retrieval
Information retrieval, intelligent querying and epidemiological analysis.

These applications will bring major benefits to clinicians and other health care professionals, Health Service managers and planners, Systems Developers, Integrators and Vendors, Information Providers and developers of Decision Support Systems.

List of Deliverables

Year 1

Report on initial release workshop and experience with existing 'version O' software and existing analyses and compilations of terminologies (5/R/I)
Methodology for evaluation of the CORE Model and monitoring of its population (9/R/P)
Methodology for maintaining consistency and integrity with multiple versions and multiple sites (9/R/L)
Preliminary Requirements and Specification of Terminology Server and Query Language
User Centred Design and requirements for and specification of Structured Clinical User Interface (12/R/L)

Year 2

The Master Notation, version 1 (3/R/P)
Consolidated Terminology Engine and SET Tools, version 1 (3/P/R)
Consolidated CORE Model & SET Code Conversion Information Module, version 1
Consolidated specification of the Terminology Server & Personal User Programmable Protected Implementation (PUPPI)(6/S/P)
The Classification Manager version 1 with supporting software tools(9/P/L)
SCUI VERSION 1 and evaluation (9/PR/R)
Potential for integration of the CORE Model and Master Notation with the Medical Logic Modules (ASTM/Arden Syntax)(11/R/P)
Evaluation of the coverage and extensibility of the CORE Model version 1 vis a vis existing medical records in the speciality of orthopaedic surgery(11/R/P)

Year 3

The Master Notation version 2 (3/R/P)
The Consolidated Terminology Engine and SET Tools and Terminology Server version 2
The Consolidated CORE Model and Code Conversion Information Module version 2
The English and French lexicons and text-generation software for expressions in the CORE Model (3/0/L)
The Personal User Programmable Protected Implementation (PUPPI) (6/P/L)
Demonstration Structured Clinical User Interface version 2 including tools for its maintenance and tailoring (12/P/L)
Consolidated experience and evaluation of use of SET for support of KBSs (12/R/P)
Report on the mechanisms for the long term maintenance and dissemination of GALEN and relations with external bodies, standards organisations and other AIM projects (12/R/P)
The classification Manager version 2 with supporting software tools and Evaluation
Augmented thesaurus and evaluation (12/R/L)
Evaluation of the use of the Terminology Server within a medical record system in the speciality of orthopaedic surgery (12/R/P)
Summary and evaluation of multilingual functionality of the SET (12/R/P)
Consolidated evaluation of the conversion between existing coding systems via the Code Conversion Information Module and the role of the CORE Model in the Classification Manager and Augmented Thesaurus (12/R/P)
Consolidated summary of experience and evaluation of master Notation and CORE Model Terminology Server and PUPPI(12/R/P)
Final Summary report (12/R/P)

List of Participants

Mr. Stephen Todd Hewlett Packard Ltd. Filton Road Stoke Gifford Bristol BS12 6QZ, U.K. Tel.: +44-272-22.87.98 Fax: +44-272-22.87.98	Dr. Robert Baud Hopital Cantonal Universitaire Centre d'Informatique Rue Micheli-du-Crest 24 CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland Tel.: +41-22-22.62.05 Fax: +41-22-47.64.86
Dr. Angelo Rossi-Mori ITBM CNR Viale Marx 15 I-00156 Roma, Italy Tel.: +39-6-827.71.01 Fax: +39-6-682.22.03	Prof. Ove Wigertz Univ. Linköping Medical Informatics S-58183 Linköping, Sweden Tel.: +46-13-22.75.70 Fax: +46-13-10.41.31
Dr. Pieter Zanstra Katholieke Univ. Nijmegen Medische Informatica Verl. Groenestraat 75 Postbus 9101 NL-Nijmegen HB, The Netherlands Tel.: +31-80-61.54.30 Fax: +31-80-61.35.05	Dr. Rolf Engelbrecht GSF - Medis Institut Inglostaedter Landstraße 1 D-8042 Neuherberg, Germany Tel.: +49-89-31.87.53.30 Fax: +49-89-31.87.33.26
Mrs. Paula Lyytikainen Finnish Hosp. League Tornen Linja 14 SF-00530 Helsinki, Finland Tel.: +358-0-771.26.09 Fax: +358-0-771.26.52	Dr. Fabio Magalini Conser Sistemi Avanzati S.p.A. Via Domenico Sansotta 100 I-00144 Roma, Italy Tel.: +39-6-520.52.43 Fax: +39-6-520.52.49
Prof. Roy Rada Univ. Liverpool Dept. Computer Science Chadwack Bldg. PO Box 147 Liverpool D69 3BX, U.K. Tel.: +44-51-794.36.69 Fax: +44-51-708.65.02



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