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Describe and evaluate an Internet-based approach to patient decision support using mathematical models that predict the probability of successful treatment on the basis of meta-analytic summaries of the mean and standard deviation of symptom response.

The task of ad hoc classification is to automatically place a large number of text documents into nonstandard categories that are determined by a user. The authors examine the use of statistical information retrieval techniques for ad hoc classification of dictated mammography reports.

The authors describe a methodology for helping computational biologists diagnose discrepancies they encounter between experimental data and the predictions of scientific models. The authors call these discrepancies data-model conflicts. They have built a prototype system to help scientists resolve these conflicts in a more systematic, evidence-based manner. In computational biology, data-model conflicts are the result of complex computations in which data and models are transformed and evaluated. Increasingly, the data [...]

Perrow's models of organizational technologies provide a framework for analyzing clinical work processes and identifying the management structures and informatics tools to support each model. From this perspective, health care is a mixed model in which knowledge workers require flexible management and a variety of informatics tools. A Venn diagram representing the content of clinical decisions shows that uncertainties in the components of clinical decisions largely determine which type of [...]

The American health care system is one of the world's largest and most complex industries. The Health Care Financing Administration reports that 1997 expenditures for health care exceeded one trillion dollars, or 13.5 percent of the gross domestic product. Despite these expenditures, over 16 percent of the U.S. population remains uninsured, and a large percentage of patients express dissatisfaction with the health care system. Managed care, effective in its ability [...]

Non-health-care uses of information technology (IT) provide important lessons for health care informatics that are often overlooked because of the focus on the ways in which health care is different from other domains. Eight examples of IT use outside health care provide a context in which to examine the content and potential relevance of these lessons. Drawn from personal experience, five books, and two interviews, the examples deal with the [...]

The purpose of this article is to provide the author's perspective on whether it is likely or feasible that those working in the health care domain will adapt and use lessons learned by those in the industrial domain. This article provides some historical perspective on the changes brought about in the industrial domain through the introduction of new technologies, including information technologies. The author discusses how industrialization catalyzed changes in [...]

Informatics and information technology do not appear to be valued by the health industry to the degree that they are in other industries. The agenda for health informatics should be presented so that value to the health system is linked directly to required investment. The agenda should acknowledge the foundation provided by the current health system and the role of financial issues, system impediments, policy, and knowledge in effecting change [...]