Temporal Information Systems in Medicine
The effective and efficient use of information systems in health care organizations and services is a vital element of the quality of life worldwide. The modeling of time has attracted interest from a number of research communities, each addressing aspect
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Carlo Combi Yuval Shahar
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Elpida Keravnou-Papailiou
Temporal Information Systems in Medicine Foreword by Jim Hunter
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Prof. Dr. Carlo Combi University of Verona Department of Computer Science Strada le Grazie 15 37134 Verona Italy [email protected]
Prof. Dr. Yuval Shahar Ben Gurion University Medical Informatics Research Center Department of Information Systems Engineering 84105 Beer Sheva Israel [email protected]
Prof. Dr. Elpida Keravnou-Papailiou University of Cyprus Department of Computer Science Kallipoleos Street 75 1678 Nicosia Cyprus [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-6542-4 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-6543-1 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-6543-1 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2010928349 c Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 ° All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
This book is dedicated to our families, who supported us and waited patiently for a decade while this book was written.
Foreword
Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore.†
I was very pleased indeed when Carlo, Elpida and Yuval asked me to contribute this foreword. Most immediately, I was pleased to be given the chance to encourage you to continue to read and explore what follows in this book. Our bodies are dynamic systems that change over time if this were not so, the practice of medicine would be easy (or at least easier than it actually is). Clinicians use the past history of signs, symptoms etc., as a diagnostic tool to identify the current state of the patient. Their knowledge of what has happened to other similar patients and the models they possess of disease development, allows them to make some attempt to predict the future. If we, as informaticians, attempt to capture and reproduce these skills, we must be able to represent temporal medical knowledge and apply it to real patient temporal data. This book provides an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to understand the current state of the art and has been written by three of the most respected researchers in the field. But I was also pleased because it gives me a chance to reflect on the evolution of the field over the past 30 years (tempus fugit). Clearly there have been many developments, many of whic
