Web-based medical knowledge base
- Medizinische Wissensbank für Praxis, Forschung & Bildung -
| developed by |
clinical domains |
keywords |
| FMB GmbH, Heidelberg |
Multiple |
Information Management Systems, knowledge authoring, knowledge retrieval, knowledge representation |
| status |
access demonstrator |
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The latest version of medrapid was released in December 2006.
Development started in 1999 at Heidelberg University.
FMB GmbH, a spin-off from Heidelberg University, was founded in 2004 to disseminate the system.
Version 4.1 was released online in April 2005.
medrapid is in use at the Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg,
the Thoraxklinik Heidelberg, other clinics in the Heidelberg area and on sanvartis.de (a commercial medical content website). |
Currently in German only.
French and English versions remain planned (at December 2006).
|
| description |
medrapid supports the representation, validation, browsing, search and retrieval of medical knowledge.
medrapid includes knowledge on over 5,400 diseaese from all specialities.
medrapid has been designed to :
- Provide comprehensive up-to-date medical knowledge at the point of care
- Support research, education, and routine clinical practice
- Support the definition of a communications standard for medical knowledge.
Features of medrapid:
- Comprehensive knowledge on individual diseases
- Intelligent support for knowledge retrieval
- Automated comparison of arbitrary diseases
- medrapid integrates web search engine technology
- The authoring system supports structured knowledge entry and quality management.
Authors enter synopses of medical knowledge and research into medrapid and add links to the originating sources.
- Uses a proprietary and extendable controlled vocabulary
- Offers four tutorials (the current alpha versions are restricted to testers): automated generation of multiple choice questions; automated generation of crosswords; case simulator; clinical scenario
- Discussion Forum (password-protected access) and blogs
- My medrapid
|
| references |
van Quekelberghe PR, Jakob T, Hoffmann D, Wetter T, Finkeissen E.
Minimalist knowledge representation of primary care diseases in the medrapid.info knowledge base.
Inform Prim Care. 2005;13(4):239-48.
[PubMed]
[]
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"
BACKGROUND: Communication media commonly used in medicine today no longer meet the needs brought on by the present knowledge explosion. The Heidelberg medrapid project has been developed to quickly communicate high-quality clinical knowledge to physicians. METHODS: In this paper, medrapid is introduced as an online clinical knowledge resource, and the methods used by the 'knowledge entry' function for the minimalist representation of clinical knowledge in the knowledge base are discussed. RESULTS: On average, fewer than 1.4 problems per disease arose during the input of the formal representation of clinical knowledge using the 'knowledge entry' function. However, representation of disease time processes, descriptions, warnings and graphics with the 'knowledge entry' function remains problematic. CONCLUSIONS: The 'knowledge entry' function allows fast formal representation of clinical knowledge (<14 minutes per disease) and testing using the integrated quality management system. In the near future, new measures must be found to improve the problematic representation of disease time processes, descriptions, warnings and graphics to formally represent clinical knowledge using the medrapid 'knowledge entry' function.
"
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| Finkeissen E, Fuchs H, Jakob T et al.
MedRapid-medical community & business intelligence system.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2002;90:582-6.
[PubMed]
[]
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"OBJECTIVE: currently, it takes at least 6 months for researchers to communicate their results. This delay is caused (a) by partial lacks of machine support for both representation as well as communication and (b) by media breaks during the communication process. METHODS: To make an integrated communication between researchers and practitioners possible, a general structure for medical content representation has been set up. The procedure for data entry and quality management has been generalized and implemented in a web-based authoring system. RESULTS: The MedRapid-system supports the medical experts in entering their knowledge into a database. Here, the level of detail is still below that of current medical guidelines representation. However, the symmetric structure for an area-wide medical knowledge representation is highly retrievable and thus can quickly be communicated into daily routine for the improvement of the treatment quality. In addition, other sources like journal articles and medical guidelines can be references within the MedRapid-system and thus be communicated into daily routine. CONCLUSIONS: The fundamental system for the representation of medical reference knowledge (from reference works/books) itself is not sufficient for the friction-less communication amongst medical staff. Rather, the process of (a) representing medical knowledge, (b) refereeing the represented knowledge, (c) communicating the represented knowledge, and (d) retrieving the represented knowledge has to be unified. MedRapid will soon support the whole process on one server system." |
|
| contact |
links |
Ekkehard Finkeissen
FMB GmbH
Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 62
69118 Heidelberg
Deutschland
T: 0700 63372743
E: team medrapid.info
|
|
| acknowledgements |
| Ekkehard Finkeissen, FMB GmbH |
Entry on OpenClinical: May 12 2003 (Research zone)
04 July 2005 (Clinical zone)
Last main updates: 14 July 2005; 31 December 2006
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medrapid
medrapid