DIOGENE 2, a distributed Hospital Information System with an emphasis on ist Medical Information Contenct

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Computer Science in Medicine
• Health Information Systems

Background:

• The mainframe-based DIOGENE 1 hospital information system (HIS) faced limitations in growth and integration with other medical systems.
• The need for faster networking and cooperation with heterogeneous systems necessitated a new HIS architecture.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the design and implementation of DIOGENE 2, a distributed HIS architecture.
• To facilitate the integration of new functionalities and support hospital organizational decentralization.

Main Methods:

• Migration from a centralized mainframe HIS (DIOGENE 1) to a distributed architecture (DIOGENE 2).
• Integration of new functionalities including a Wireless Information System (WIS) architecture, medical office patient histories, and PC-based client/server platforms.
• Utilizing medical natural language processing and semi-automatic encoding for patient records.
• Incorporating Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) and tools for molecular biology/genetics, including the ExPASy server via WWW/Mosaic.

Main Results:

• The distributed architecture of DIOGENE 2 facilitates cooperation with decentralized hospital organization.
• Successful integration of diverse functionalities like WIS, medical office patient histories, and advanced imaging/genetics tools.
• The system supports structured patient records and medical natural language processing.

Conclusions:

• The distributed architecture of DIOGENE 2 is well-suited for integrating and scaling new functionalities.
• DIOGENE 2 effectively supports modern hospital information needs, including advanced medical imaging and genetic data management.