Health Information Management: What Strategies? contains the Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Medical and Health Libraries and gives a full account of the state-of-the-art of European medical librarianship. This book is the fifth in a well-received series of proceedings of the European conferences and together the volumes form a valuable source for medical librarians in Europe. The quality of papers reflects the growth of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL) towards maturity and the ongoing professional development of its members. The field of medical and health information has no geographical borders, therefore medical librarianship needs to be an international and multinational cooperation. The book reflects the important developments ongoing in medical informatics and medical information management. These subjects are touched upon as they have a close connection to medical librarianship. The future of medical libraries will be dominated by strong alliances with computer departments and health and hospital management departments. Many contributions deal with the strategies medical librarians can or will develop in order to incorporate the many tools of modern information technology into library policy and practice.

Computer technology has impacted the practice of medicine in dramatic ways. Imaging techniques provide noninvasive tools which alter the diag nostic process. Sophisticated monitoring equipment presents new levels of detail for both patient management and research. In most of these high technology applications, the computer is embedded in the device; its presence is transparent to the user. There is also a growing number of applications in which the health care provider directly interacts with a computer. In many cases, these appli cations are limited to administrative functions, e.g., office practice man agement, location of hospital patients, appointments, and scheduling. Nevertheless, there also are instances of patient care functions such as results reporting, decision support, surveillance, and reminders. This series, Computers and Medicine, will focus upon the direct use of information systems as it relates to the medical community. After twenty-five years of experimentation and experience, there are many tested applications which can be implemented economically using the current generation of computers. Moreover, the falling cost of computers suggests that there will be even more extensive use in the near future. Yet there is a gap between current practice and the state-of-the-art."

This series is directed to healthcare professionals who are leading the trans formation of health care by using information and knowledge. Launched in 1988 as Computers in Health Care, the series offers a broad range of titles: some addressed to specific professions such as nursing, medicine, and health administration; others to special areas of practice such as trauma and radiol ogy. Still other books in the series focus on interdisciplinary issues, such as the computer-based patient record, electronic health records, and networked healthcare systems. Renamed Health Informatics in 1998 to reflect the rapid evolution in the discipline now known as health informatics, the series will continue to add titles that contribute to the evolution of the field. In the series, eminent ex perts, serving as editors or authors, offer their accounts of innovations in health informatics. Increasingly, these accounts go beyond hardware and soft ware to address the role of information in influencing the transformation of healthcare deli very systems around the world. The series also increasingly focuses on "peopleware" and the organizational, behavioral, and societal changes that accompany the diffusion of information technology in health services environments."

This monograph addresses, in a systematic and pedagogical manner, the mathematical methods and the algorithms required to deal with the molecularly based problems of bioinformatics. Prominent attention is given to pair-wise and multiple sequence alignment algorithms, stochastic models of mutations, modulus structure theory and protein configuration analysis. Strong links to the molecular structures of proteins, DNA and other biomolecules and their analyses are developed.

"Progress in Medical Imaging" contains a collection of interdisciplinary reviews of subtopics in medical imaging written by internationally known experts. Topics contained in the book include automatic recognition of cells and tissue types in light microscopy, computerized manipulation and assembly of two-dimensional scans of an organ into images of the three-dimensional organ which can be rotated in space, techniques for reducing the image degradation produced by scattering radiation in chest radiography, recent advances in instrumentation, and principles of positron-emission tomography. The final chapters of this book describe the advantages of pseudo-random codes as transmitted signals for ultrasonic flow measurement, imaging, and medium characterization. The primary audience for "Progress in Medical Imaging" includes engineers, physicists, and students engaged in research, development, or applications of medical imaging.

This book is the result of several years of enthusiastic planning and effort. Much of this enthusiasm came from the experience of devel{)ping Critical Care Consultant, a large BASIC program for critical care applications (St. Louis, C. V. Mosby, 1985). Working with clinicians showed me that many were interested in learning about clinical applications of computers (and even programming in small doses) but were faced with a paucity of clinical application software. Few had the time or training to develop any such software on their own. After a search through the existing medical literature unearthed relatively little in the way of usable programs, I decided that a series of small clinical applications programs would be of use to the medical community. At the onset a number of strategic decisions were made: (1) the programs would be written in BASIC, in view of its universal popularity, (2) the units used for clinical laboratory tests would be those in common use in the United States, (3) the programs would be simple and easily understood and employ no exotic tricks that were not easily transported across computers, (4) references to the literature would be provided to allow the clinician to critically assess the algorithm or method used himself or to follow up on subsequent criticisms that may have been published, and (5) the programs would demonstrate reasonable standards of software engineering in terms of clarity, trans portability, documentation, and ease of modification."

When Pascal James Imperato, MD, assumed the edi * Exclusion by the New York State Departm~nt of Health of qualified laboratories from HIV testmg torship of the New York State Journal of Medicine in 198~, the acquired immunodeficiency syndro. me (AIDS) epI * Protection of health care workers * Responsibilities of physicians and other health care demic in the United States was already SIX years old. Dur ing the time of his editorship, two thematic issues of the workers Journal have been devoted to AIDS. In addition, a large * Public education number of original communications have been regularly * AIDS confidentiality published on the subje~t. This volume ?rings together The Symposium on AIDS in Washington, DC, had important articles published on AIDS m the Journal been so successful that the MSSNY, under the auspices of during 1987 and 1988. . . the task force and the Division of Governmental Affairs, In the early years of the epidemic the Medical Society of held two informational symposia for state senators and the State of New York (MSSNY) was aware that it had a assemblymen and their staffs in Albany, New York. Thes. e responsibility to both the professi?~ an~ the public to add were presented in February 1988 and. March. 1989. ,!,hIS its efforts to those already mobIlized m the attempt to effort has convinced the MSSNY that It has given legisla understand and control this tragic disease. Early on, the tors a better understanding of the overall AIDS problem.

Nursing and Computers: An Anthology 1987-1996 is a compilation of both landmark historic and contemporary papers, illustrating the inception and evolution of nursing informatics. The editors have collected these newly-published independent papers, and assembled them into an invaluable source book providing a framework for future developments in the field of Nursing Informatics. It will be an essential tool for nurses seeking to attain credentials as Nursing Informatics Specialists. The articles demonstrate representative experiences and philosophies in the field, attempting to maintain and expand upon the current knowledge base of computer technology in nursing. Examining the relationship between nursing and information systems, practical applications include: administration, practice, research, education, critical care, and community health.

Medical science and practice have undergone fundamental changes in the last 5 years, as large-scale genome projects have resulted in the sequencing of a number of important microbial, plant and animal genomes. This book aims to combine industry standard software engineering and design principles with genomics, bioinformatics and cancer research. Rather than an exercise in learning a programming platform, the text focuses on useful analytical tools for the scientific community.

Modern critical care is characterized by the collection of large volumes of data and the making of urgent patient care decisions. The two do not necessarily go together easily. For many years the hope has been that ICU data management systems could play a meaningful role in ICU decision support. These hopes now have a basis in fact, and this book details the history, methodology, current status, and future prospects for critical care decision support systems. By focusing on real and operational systems, the book demonstrates the importance of integrating data from diverse clinical data sources; the keys to implementing clinically usable systems; the pitfalls to avoid in implementation; and the development of effective evaluation methods.

This book brings together the best thinking from both sides of the Atlantic to explore the issues surrounding soaring health care costs. It employs disciplinary perspectives from economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology, clinical practice, and epidemiology to explore various ways that value for patients have and can be determined. A major section of the book discusses problems that can reduce the value to patients of medical care. The volume is must read for practitioners, policy makers, and researchers who want to find in one place the state-of-the-art thinking and future directions of valuing medical care from the patient 's perspective.

Healthcare Information Management Systems, Third edition, will be a comprehensive volume addressing the technical, organizational, and management issues confronted by healthcare professionals in the selection, implementation, and management of healthcare information systems. With contributions from experts in the field, this book focuses on topics such as strategic planning, turning a plan into reality, implementation, patient-centered technologies, privacy, the new culture of patient safety, and the future of technologies in progress. With the addition of 28 new chapters, the Third Edition is also richly peppered with case studies of implementation, both in the United States and abroad. The case studies are evidence that information technology can be implemented efficiently to yield results, yet they do not overlook pitfalls, hurdles, and other challenges that are encountered. Designed for use by physicians, nurses, nursing and medical directors, department heads, CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, COOs, and healthcare informaticians, the book aims to be a indispensible reference."

To say that Fuzzy Logic in Medicine, or FLM for short, is an important addi tion to the literature of fuzzy logic and its applications, is an understatement. Edited by two prominent informaticians, Professors S. Barro and R. Marin, it is one of the first books in its field. Between its covers, FLM presents authoritative expositions of a wide spectrum of medical and biological ap plications of fuzzy logic, ranging from image classification and diagnostics to anaesthesia control and risk assessment of heart diseases. As the editors note in the preface, recognition of the relevance of fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic to biological and medical systems has a long history. In this context, particularly worthy of note is the pioneering work of Profes sor Klaus Peter Adlassnig of the University of Vienna School of Medicine. However, it is only within the past decade that we began to see an accelerat ing growth in the visibility and importance of publications falling under the rubric of fuzzy logic in medicine and biology -a leading example of which is the Journal of the Biomedical Fuzzy Systems Association in Japan. Why did it take so long for this to happen? First, a bit of history."

Developments in telepathology are progressing at a great speed. As a consequence, there is a need for a broad overview of the field. This first ever book on telepathology is presented in such a way that it should make it accessible to anyone, independent of their kno- edge of technology. The text is designed to be used by all prof- sionals, including pathologists, surgeons, nurses and allied health professionals, and computer scientists. In a very short time, driven by technical developments, the field of telepathology has become too extensive to be covered by only a small number of experts. Therefore, this Telepathology book has been written with chapter contributions from a host of renowned international authorities in telepathology (see the Table of Contents and the List of Contributors). This ensures that the subject matter focusing on recent advances in telepathology is truly up to date. Our guiding hope during this task was that as editors of multiple chapters we could still write with a single voice and keep the content coherent and simple. We hope that the clarity of this book makes up for any limitations in its comprehensiveness.

Health institutions are investing in and fielding information technology solutions at an unprecedented pace. With the recommendations from the Institute of Medicine around information technology solutions for patient safety, mandates from industry groups such as Leapfrog about using infor mation systems to improve health care, and the move toward evidence based practice, health institutions cannot afford to retain manual practices. The installation of multi-million dollar computerized health systems repre sents the very life blood of contemporary clinical operations and a crucial link to the financial viability of institutions. Yet, the implementation of health information systems is exceptionally complex, expensive and often just plain messy. The need for improvement in the art and science of systems implemen tation is clear: up to 70-80% of information technology installations fail. The reasons are multi-faceted, ranging from the complexity of the diverse workflows being computerized, the intricate nature of health organizations, the knowledge and skills of users to other reasons such as strategies for obtaining key executive support, weaving through the politics peculiar to the institution, and technical facets including the usability of systems. Thus, the art and science of successfully implementing systems remains deeply layered in elusiveness. Still, given the pervasiveness of system implementa tions and the importance of the outcomes, this is a critical topic, especially for nurses and informatics nurse specialists."

Like the previous editions, this book is a primer for those new to nursing informatics. It provides a thorough introduction to basic terms and concepts, as well as an in-depth exploration of the most prevalent applications in nursing practice, education, administration, and research. Expanded and updated to reflect the remarkable technical advances achieved in health care in recent years, this new edition offers the reader illustrative examples and valuable information resources. Topics include: Telecommunications and Informatics; Nursing Aspects of Health Information Systems; Clinical Practice Applications of Nursing Informatics; Infrastructure Elements of the Health Informatics Environment; and Future Opportunities for Nurses in Health Informatics. This primer guides reader who want basic information on how to select and use information systems and information management in all aspects of nursing practice, education, management, and research.

Computational intelligence techniques are gaining momentum in the medical prognosis and diagnosis. This volume presents advanced applications of machine intelligence in medicine and bio-medical engineering. Applied methods include knowledge bases, expert systems, neural networks, neuro-fuzzy systems, evolvable systems, wavelet transforms, and specific internet applications. The volume is written in view of explaining to the practitioner the fundamental issues related to computational intelligence paradigms and to offer a fast and friendly-managed introduction to the most recent methods based on computer intelligence in medicine.

The nations of the EU have long led the world in universal health coverage. Recent economic developments have created problems ranging from inequities of care to growing numbers of uninsured - a progression analyzed by Win de Gooijer in Trends in EU Health Care Systems. His ideas may be startling, and the book is bound to be controversial. This is critical reading for health care managers and policymakers, politicians and insurors - anyone looking to Europe to understand this far-reaching evolution.

Presents an overall analytical treatment of MRI physics and engineering. Special attention is paid to the treatment of intrinsic artefacts of the different sequences which can be described for the different scan methods. The book contains many images, especially showing specific properties of the different scan methods. The methods discussed include RARE, GRASE, EPI and Spiral Scan. The 3rd edition deals with stranger gradient and new RF coil systems, and sequences such as Balanced FFE and q-space diffusion imaging and SENSE.

Emergent Computation emphasizes the interrelationship of the different classes of languages studied in mathematical linguistics (regular, context-free, context-sensitive, and type 0) with aspects to the biochemistry of DNA, RNA, and proteins. In addition, aspects of sequential machines such as parity checking and semi-groups are extended to the study of the Biochemistry of DNA, RNA, and proteins. Mention is also made of the relationship of algebraic topology, knot theory, complex fields, quaternions, and universal turing machines and the biochemistry of DNA, RNA, and proteins.

Emergent Computation tries to avoid an emphasis upon mathematical abstraction ("elegance") at the expense of ignoring scientific facts known to Biochemists. Emergent Computation is based entirely upon papers published by scientists in well-known and respected professional journals. These papers are based upon current research. A few examples of what is not ignored to gain "elegance":

- DNA exists as triple and quadruple strands

- Watson-Crick complementary bases have mismatches

- There can be more than four bases in DNA

- There are more than sixty-four codons

- There may be more that twenty amino acids in proteins

While Emergent Computation emphasizes bioinformatics applications, the last chapter studies mathematical linguistics applied to areas such as languages found in birds, insects, medical applications, anthropology, etc.

Emergent Computation tries to avoid unnecessary mathematical abstraction while still being rigorous. The demands made upon the knowledge of chemistry or mathematics is minimized as well. The collected technical references are valuable in itself for additional reading.

This is a resource book on clinical decision support systems for informatics specialists, a textbook for teachers or students in health informatics and a comprehensive introduction for clinicians. It has become obvious that, in addition to physicians, other health professionals have need of decision support. Therefore, the issues raised in this book apply to a broad range of clinicians. The book includes chapters written by internationally recognized experts on the design, evaluation and application of these systems, who examine the impact of computer-based diagnostic tools both from the practitioner 's perspective and that of the patient.

This book contains a comprehensive collection of experimental and computational strategies and techniques for microbial genome-scale essentiality studies, developed and presented by the leading groups in the field. It contains detailed description of the procedures, discussion of potential difficulties and failures. All protocols follow the successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format.

PACS: A Guide to the Digital Revolution, Second Edition, fills an incredible need by explaining the technological advances associated with the transition of radiology departments to filmless environments. The editors are leaders in the field of medical imaging and they provide insight into emerging technologies for physicians, administrators, and other interested groups. Chapters address key topics in current literature with regard to the generation, transfer, interpretation, and distribution of images.

This new edition has been updated to include: 1. An overview of the latest medical imaging standards; 2. A discussion of security issues as they relate to PACS, especially regarding HIPAA; 3. An introduction to current information on PACS workstations, including the impact of new software and hardware on radiologists; 4. An updated explanation of data storage and compression that highlights how advancements are applied; 5. A section on how PACS influences research and education.

Pervasive healthcare is the conceptual system of providing healthcare to anyone, at anytime, and anywhere by removing restraints of time and location while increasing both the coverage and the quality of healthcare. Pervasive Healthcare Computing is at the forefront of this research, and presents the ways in which mobile and wireless technologies can be used to implement the vision of pervasive healthcare.

This vision includes prevention, healthcare maintenance and checkups; short-term monitoring (home healthcare), long-term monitoring (nursing home), and personalized healthcare monitoring; and incidence detection and management, emergency intervention, transportation and treatment. The pervasive healthcare applications include intelligent emergency management system, pervasive healthcare data access, and ubiquitous mobile telemedicine.

Pervasive Healthcare Computing includes the treatment of several new wireless technologies and the ways in which they will implement the vision of pervasive healthcare.

An earlier book by Rodrick Wallace entitled Consciousness: A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model, introduced a formal information-theoretic approach to individual consciousness implementing approaches developed previously by the cognitive scientist Bernard Baars and the philosopher Fred Dretske.

This book takes a more formal 'groupoid' perspective and generalizes the results of that book to processes of 'distributed cognition' characteristic of large institutions that can entertain several, sometimes many, simultaneous 'global workspaces' which must compete for resources while communicating and cooperating.

Equivalence classes of 'states' produce a network of language-analogs characterizing interacting cognitive modules which entertain multiple workspaces. Equivalence classes of these language-analogs produce dynamical manifolds describing temporal processes carried out by multiple-workspace institutions.