A semantic-based kernel for advanced health information systems

This paper reports on the design and development of an infrastructure allow ing one to share and exchange multimedia data in the context of a health ne twork. A single technology exploiting a semantic model of the hospital univ erse provides users with information and data of diverse origins, generated by the various actors or departments of the health organization. Functions provided include act management and patient record management governed by domain semantics. The functionality has been validated through laboratory e xperiments against the requirements of protocol directed care and health ne tworks. The functionality is integrated into a clinician workstation exploi ted in the Internet/Intranet environment thanks to a commercial browser. Th ese results have been obtained with the support of several projects in the frame of the Health-Care Telematics Applications Programme of the European Community and of the Eureka Programme.