Initial Situation

In health care the data availability of patient files is unsatisfying:

• 98% of all patient files are paper documents.
• The attending doctor has no access to the patient file in moments when he needs it most.
• Already digitized data are saved in heterogeneous systems and cannot be linked or only in a difficult way.
• The medical staff spends a lot of their working time with documentation, coordination and administrative duties.

Project Aim

Developing a model and a prototypical implementation for using medical data in hospital by software agents.

Realization

In the beginning is the analysis of information logistic structures in health care under considering the involved persons’ communication and cooperation processes. Hence models will be developed which satisfy both: they should be realistic, that means specific to the domain hospital, and the models need to be suited for the agent technology. The Universität Potsdam, as the tandem partner, realized the technical implementation of the agent system based on this model. This model has been extended and adapted in several cycles by the Technische Universität München.

Value

Expected benefits for the health care sectors:

• Reduce administrative duties, so there is more time for treating patients.
• Support the communication and cooperation of involved persons which is hindered by increasingly specialized medical staff, complex clinical pictures and lengthy courses of treatment.
• Link cases of treatment with data of current medical research.
• Increase the share of electronic patient documents and therefore improve the access to this patient documents.

Stakeholder

Scientific Partners

Technische Universität München, Chair for Information Systems (Prof. Dr. Krcmar)
Universität Potsdam, Chair for Software Engineering (Prof. Dr. Horn)

Research Funding

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (german research community)
DFG reference number: KR 998/11-1

Contact

Prof. Dr. Helmut Krcmar