Last update: August 15, 1996

GALEN-IN-USE GALEN is developing practical tools and techniques for managing medical language and terminology. It addresses the problems found by clinicians in entering and representing information about patients using traditional coding system and problems found by managers in using the information collected. It is providing 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. It supports inter-operability and information sharing amongst systems without imposing unrealistic uniformity. It supports intuitive user interfaces to be used directly by clinicians and aims to allow systems to be tailored rapidly to individual needs with respect to language, coding systems, and the level of detail recorded. The GALEN-IN-USE project will collaborate with classification centres from many European countries and the European Federation of Classification Centres to demonstrate the use of the GALEN technologies for harmonising, developing and maintaining terminologies for procedures. it will develop a Common Reference Model' - analogous to a grammar and dictionary of concepts - which can be

recombined and reorganised as required. Because it is based on a grammar and dictionary rather than a fixed set of terms or rubrics', GALEN's techniques allow great flexibility in tailoring the terminology to local and national needs. GALEN delivers terminologies through Terminology Servers' - software modules which hold the Common Reference Model, associated natural language lexicons and grammars, mappings to coding systems, and repositories for closely associated application-specific information. The Terminology Servers provide a common applications programming interface to the GALEN techniques and can also package complex concepts from the GALEN models as fixed-length identifiers which can be used easily by standard database management systems. The GALEN-IN-USE project will demonstrate the use of its terminologies and Terminology Servers in clinical systems for surgical reporting, general practice, and diabetes care in Finland, England and Bavaria respectively. The project is collaborating closely to provide a common terminology for the PRESTIGE project on delivering clinical protocols and has links with other Healthcare Telematics projects on medical records and protocol management.

Aims and Objectives GALEN-IN-USE is a response to a specific user demand for improved terminologies for medical procedures. It aims to promote greater European harmonisation and to overcome the problems encountered in using traditional and coding and classification systems in this difficult area. The overall goals of the project are: to demonstrate a telematic infrastructure capable of being scaled up Europe-wide for the co-operative development and maintenance of coherent multilingual medical terminologies based on a Common Reference Model. to demonstrate the use of the model and terminologies in data entry and user interface modules in clinical systems. The project is focused on the development of terminologies for procedures with the specific objectives of producing: A Common Reference Model - the grammar and dictionary of concepts' - for medical procedures National and specialist classifications coherent with and mapped to the Common Reference Model.

Practical methodologies for working co-operatively to develop and harmonise the Common Reference Model. Tools to help natural language processing involving large clinical nomenclatures. Tools and delivery software to develop and maintain the model. The key software products based on the Terminology Servers will be: - The Classification Manager (ClaM) for developing and managing classifications linked to the Common Reference Model. - The Knowledge Management Environment (Tele-KNOME) for integrating, maintaining and disseminating the Common Reference Model. - Tools for co-operative working via the Internet and World Wide Web. Key Milestones Key milestones will be: The consolidation of the methodology in 1996. Demonstration of independently developed data entry software based on GALEN technology at the end of 1996,

The delivery of the common reference model and the enhanced Classification Manager software along with the telematic support environment at the end of 1996. Practical demonstration of the use of the Classification Manager and telematic environment by the validating centres during 1998. Further demonstration of the practical use of the GALEN models and technology in clinical systems during 1998. Progress to Date and Anticipated Activity in the first half of 1996 GALEN-IN-USE is based on the solid achievement of the Galen project plus the developments in the MultiTale project from the Language Engineering initiative. Initial versions of the Terminology Servers, Classification Manager and Knowledge Management Environment exist along with a foundation model developed in Galen itself. The first six months of the project are being devoted to establishing

the methodology for cooperation through an extensive programme of exchanges and training and through a series of practical experiments. The experiments will develop preliminary versions of sections of the Common Reference Model for procedures and associated national classifications which are of high priority for particular national centres. The first commercial data entry system using the Galen techniques will begin alpha testing near the end of this period in the UK and its validation will form a key part of the Galen-In-Use demonsatrations. Further information, bibliographies, documentation, papers and demonstrations are available at the Web site below or from the project administrator. Contact: Chris Brand, Galen Project Administrator Medical Informatics Group, Department of Computer Science University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK Tel: +44-161-275-6133, Fax: +44-161-275-6932 Internet: galen@cs.man.ac.uk WWW: htpp://www.cs.man.ac. uk/mig/galen

 

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