On Mon, 1 Oct 2001, Jeremy Rogers wrote: ... > What about data analysis, data merging and data abstraction ?
[I took the liberty of changing the subject line since you are changing the topic and this mailing list is nicely archived by the subject line. :-)] Data analysis etc are exactly what motivated the OIO project. A flexible interface, however, is always essential. For data analysis/merging/abstraction, you may agree that the solution involves metadata creation/management/use. You can call the metadata anything you want (ontology/terminology/code/etc), but they are all metadata (in relation to "patient data"). Similarly, you can call your metadata management system anything you like (ontology editor, terminology server, mediator, inference engine, etc), but they all link/translate/transform between different metadata components. ... > storage is still suboptimal if, in fact, it can not support data > analysis for the purposes of decision support - and note here that my > requirements for decision support are very different from those of > statistical aggregation. "Statistical aggregation" in this context, I suppose, is equivalent to what Thomas Beale calls "automatic processing". It may be trivial in your view but perhaps you will agree that decision support systems must also support "Statistical aggregation"? > I would not, for example, by impressed by evidence that data entered > could be converted into (for example) ICD codes. AND - give you a report of the most common diagnosis by ICD code and associated treatment procedures and statistics that lead to the least mortality and mobidity? Would you also classify this as trivial/unimpressive "statistical aggregation"? > From the point of > view of those of us trying to implement decision support, that is not > progress. What system are you working on and how do you plan to solve the non-trivial problem of "decision support" per whatever your definition may be? I am very interested. > Can the data that Odyssee captures function as the input to a machine > reasoning or decision support system, where data abstraction and > classification can take place ? The OIO system can certainly collect and output data to an adequately designed "machine reasoning" system, where data abstraction and classification can trivially take place. Of course, the key word is "adequately". :-) ... > There is much similarity of approach between Odyssee and the Rotterdam > ORCA system, and I am familiar with the analytical difficulties > experienced with the data captured by ORCA. There are four possibilities. 1) ORCA is inadequate 2) the analytic engine is inadequate 3) both are inadequate :-) 4) user expectations are theoretically impossible to meet Since you may know more about OpenGalen, what is your view on the current state-of-art and which of the above problems are you trying to solve? >From my perspective, I pick #3. #4 may have been true in the past but most clinicians now know better. Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes TxOutcome.Org (hosting OIO Library #1) Assistant Clinical Professor Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center University of California, Los Angeles
