Medical information modelling, processing and retrieval for computerized knowledge assistance towards evidence-based clinical practice

350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) The healthcare services center around the wellness, maintenance, and illness management of patients. The delivery of such services heavily depends on up-to-date medical knowledge and experience. However, miscommunication, misinterpretation of diverse forms of information exchanged between clinical settings, inability to be up-to-date with clinical best practices, and accessing rapidly changing and exponentially growing medical knowledge cause errors in healthcare that are leading cause of injuries and deaths. In this thesis, we addressed the research problems related to the interpretation and understanding of medical referral and response letters, exchanged between Specialists and General Practitioners (CPs) for patients care decision making. These research problems are implicitly associated with CPs information needs at point of care, including management of and access to evidence-based medical information and knowledge relevant to medical letters. The interpretation and understanding of referral and response letters and sending alerts for critical situations at point of care require methods for medical information processing, and methodologies for modeling and management of clinical knowledge. It also requires techniques for efficient and context-sensitive retrieval of evidence-based clinical knowledge. We have taken interdisciplinary solution approach along the lines of healthcare knowledge management, contextual information retrieval, and knowledge-based search strategies. We have formulated a knowledge modeling methodology and a computerization technique for clinical practice guidelines, which transform them into computer interpretable segments that are enriched with content-specific meta-information. To link these CPGs segments with online evidence-based medical knowledge, we have developed a technique for automatically generating clinical queries from the segments. These queries are used in a framework to retrieve and link online medical literature with corresponding segments. We have developed a method for computerized processing of referral and response letters. This method analyzes medical information and provides a comprehensive information-view of the letter to help healthcare practitioners formulate customized information specifications to access required knowledge. We also have developed a technique for contextual and statistical analysis of medical concepts and indexing strategy, which are used to retrieve CPGs segments and related medical literature. Finally, we have designed a healthcare-knowledge mediated architecture and implemented a computer system for Clinical Knowledge Msis tance (CKA). Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all property rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Micr^Hfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstracts International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). Signaturfes\ Witness Date The University recognises that there may be exceptional circumstances requiring restrictions on copying or conditions on use. Requests for restriction for a period of up to 2 years must be made in writing. Requests for a longer period of restriction may be considered in exceptional circumstances and require the approval of the Dean of Graduate Research. FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Date of completion of requirements for Award: THIS SHEET IS TO BE GLUED TO THE INSIDE FRONT COVER OF THE THESIS STATEMENT OF ORGINALITY 'I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is exphcitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and hn^ i s t i c expression is acknowledged. '