| Adverse event |
"An unintended injury that was caused by medical
management and that resulted in measurable disability" [Harvard
Medical Practice Study].
|
| Agents |
Software programs designed to interact or work together with
a degree of autonomy to perform a set of tasks or satisfy a set
of goals. Agents are typically capable of flexible, autonomous action
in a changeable and unpredictable environment. |
| Application |
A computer program or system designed to offer support
for managing a specific clinical problem typically through the performance
of a series of tasks. |
| Argumentation |
A decision making procedure based on constructing
logical arguments for and against a number of available choices,
assessing their relative merits and weighing their relative strengths.
|
| Artificial Intelligence |
Typically, computational techniques to automate
tasks that require human intelligence and the ability to reason.
|
| Bayes' theorem |
The classic statistical approach to implement probabalistic
reasoning in AI applications. |
| Bayesian Networks |
Inference systems which encode probabilistic information in a domain in oder to manage uncertainty.
|
| Bioinformatics |
The application of computers to biology.
|
| Clinical algorithm |
Any computation, formula, survey, or look-up table,
useful in healthcare. [The
Medical Algorithms Project] |
| Clinical Pathways |
See Integrated Care Pathways |
| Clinical protocol |
A standard set of tasks that define precisely how
classes of patients should be managed or treated. |
| Clinical practice guideline |
Validated policy statements representing best clinical
practice. Used to support standardised patient care. |
| Code |
The unique numerical identifier for a medical concept
in a medical terminology system. |
| Concept |
A term to define a class of objects. The "unit of symbolic processing" [Manchester University Medical Informatics Group] in a medical terminology. |
| Critical appraisal |
The process of assessing and interpreting medical
research results systematically paying particular attention to their
validity and relevance. |
| Data Dictionary |
A set of data declarations and definitions stored in a database management system
|
| Data mining |
The use of tools and techniques, often from Artificial
Intelligence, to determine patterns from a set of data. |
| (Clinical) Decision support |
Automated tools that help clinicians deliver or manage patient care. |
| (Clinical) Decision support system |
Computer system typically consisting of a knowledge
base and an inference engine (ideally integrated with workflow components and clinical data embedded in a electronic medical record system) that is able to generate advice based
on case-specific data. |
| Decision Theory |
A formal framework for making logical decisions
in problem areas containing risk, uncertainty and probabilities,
typically employing Bayesian inference methods. |
| Decision tree |
A method of representing knowledge, widely used
for classification tasks, which makes structured decisions in a
hierarchical tree-like fashion. Decision tree algorithms include
Bayes. |
| Description logic |
Logic-based knowledge representation formalism for
modelling a domain in terms of concepts (classes), roles (properties
and relations) and individuals (instances of classes).
|
| eHealth |
New computer and networking technologies applied
to healthcare. |
| Electronic Medical Record
|
A computerised healthcare record. |
| Expert System |
A computer system, typically based on artificial
intelligence techniques, that represents and applies knowledge to
provide expert quality advice, diagnoses and recommendations for
solving real world problems. Typically made up of knowledge bases
and an inference engine. |
| Health (medical) informatics |
The use of computers for managing of clinical knowledge,
information and data. |
| Induction |
A form of logical inference which allows generalisations
to be made from particular examples. |
| Inference |
A logical reasoning process to draw conclusions
from facts, suppositions and data. |
| Inference engine |
The 'reasoning' part of a computer program which
interprets knowledge and data to determine logical conclusions.
|
| Integrated Care Pathways |
Integrated Care Pathways (or Clinical Pathways)
are multidisplinary plans of care, drawn along a timeline, to support
the implementation of clinical guidelines and protocols. |
| Knowledge Acquisition |
The definition and transfer of expert knowledge
from a human to a computer program (typically a knowledge base). |
| Knowledge base |
A systematically structured set of knowledge from
an individual field stored in an AI program, typically as concepts,
facts and rules. |
| Knowledge representation |
Mapping techniques which can formalise the knowledge
of the objects in a domain and how to reason in that domain in order
to support automated inferencing. |
| Neural Networks |
Artificial neural networks are information processing
systems composed of a large number of highly interconnected processing
elements (modelled on neurons in the brain) linked by weighted connections
(mirroring synapses). |
| Ontology |
A model of a domain that defines the concepts existing
in that domain as well as taxonomic and other relationships existing
between the concepts.
Alternatively:
A set of concepts, their attributes and the relationships between
them within a given application area, typically represented as
a knowledge base. Within health informatics, an ontology would
be a formal, computer-understandable description of a domain.
|
| Patient safety |
"Freedom from accidental injury" [To
Err is Human]. |
| Systematic review |
A summary and critical appraisal of medical research
literature in a specified domain to establish the effects (potential
benefits and harms) of an intervention.
|
| Tacit knowledge |
Knowledge that is difficult to express and/or communicate formally.
Includes subjective insights and thoughts.
|
| Taxonomy |
(i)The theoretical study of classification
(ii)A hierarchical classification model of a given domain |
| Term |
An agreed name in a medical terminology for a medical
condition or treatment |
| Terminology |
A controlled set of standard terms used to describe
clinical activities. e.g. SNOMED |
| Workflow |
The process of co-ordinating patients, resources,
information and clinical and administrative procedures in order
to streamline care delivery. |
Extensive
Health Informatics Glossary (Handbook of Medical Informatics)