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Vol: 58(72) No: 1 / March 2013      

Towards Gathering Knowledge for Clinical Decision Support Systems with Topic Maps
Daniel Dragu
“Politehnica” University of Timisoara, Faculty of Automation and Computers, Bd. V. Parvan 2, 300223, Timisoara, Romania, e-mail: daniel.dragu@aut.upt.ro
Valentin Gomoi
“Politehnica” University of Timisoara, Faculty of Automation and Computers, Bd. V. Parvan 2, 300223, Timisoara, Romania, e-mail: valentin.gomoi@aut.upt.ro
Vasile Stoicu-Tivadar
“Politehnica” University of Timisoara, Faculty of Automation and Computers, Bd. V. Parvan 2, 300223, Timisoara, Romania, e-mail: vasile.stoicu-tivadar@aut.upt.ro


Keywords: semantics, clinical decision support systems, Topic Maps, knowledge representation, Virtual Medical Records

Abstract
Over time, there were used various data storage models: text files, comma separated values, hierarchical databases, relational databases, graph databases and so on. The rapid expansion of the web has given rise to new challenges, like navigating through lots of documents, through large amount of data, or retrieving the information. In this context, semantic technologies came as a solution, promising full data interchangeability between hardware and software entities of the web. E-health keeps up with the latest advances in information and communication technologies and the involved researchers pay their special attention to finding optimal solutions for the knowledge management, in order to obtain better outcome of the automated systems in healthcare. Improving the results of the Clinical decision support systems (CDSs) is a permanent concern for many research communities, which have to deal with an abundance of data and applications, structures and methods, tools and other entities specific to all of the disciplines involved in e-health. CDSs are developed based on medical experts’ knowledge and they are designed to assist clinicians to improve healthcare act. The paper presents a method to obtain more refined medical recommendations by enriching the inputs of the CDSs, through a semantic integration of several medical knowledge sources, by using a semantic technology, the Topic Maps standard. Future research directions and challenges are summarized and conclusions are issued.

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