Practical Considerations for Exploiting the World Wide Web to Create Infobuttons

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Practical Considerations for Exploiting the World
Wide Web to Create Infobuttons

• James J. Cimino, Jianhua Li, Mureen Allen,
• Leanne M. Currie, Mark Graham, Viktoria Janetzki,
• Nam-Ju Lee, Suzanne Bakken, Vimla L. Patel
• Department of Biomedical Informatics
• Columbia University

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Resolving Clinician Information Needs
Infobutton Manager
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Issues for Exploiting Resources

• Understand the information need
• Identify appropriate resource
• Translation of context data for querying
• Interaction with the resource

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

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• Match concept of interest to class(es)
• Identify context based on class(es)
• Retrieve question(s) for context
• Sort by priority
• Return HTML page of links (URLs)

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

• Question has hardcoded URL
• e.g. www.columbia.edu/potassium.pdf

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

• Translate concept of interest to controlled term
• Find controlled term in data dictionary
• Obtain term attribute for constructing URL from
  data dictionary
• Construct URL, e.g.
• www.columbia.edu/lab/ltgt.html
• cl001900
  .
• www.columbia.edu/lab/cl001900.html

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

Insert concept of interest into CGI function call
as a parameter e.g. www.Uptodate.com/search.c
gi?termltgt POTASSIUM
. www.Uptodate.com/search.c
gi?termPOTASSIUM
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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

• Translate concept of interest to controlled term
• Obtain term translation from data dictionary
• Insert translated term into CGI function call as
  a parameter
• e.g.
• pubmed.gov/search.cgi?termltgtMeSHTerms
• Potassium
  .
• pubmed.gov/search.cgi?termPotassiumMeSH Terms

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

• Resource is not a simple document or search CGI
• Log-on, navigation or other interaction required
• Multiple context parameters used
• Agent
• parses context parameters
• interacts with resource
• parses results
• presents summary
• may modify links

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

• No resource available
• Interaction too complex
• Create self-contained agent
• parses context parameters
• constructs Web page
• presents results
• may have Infobuttons of its own

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Interactions With On-line Resources

• Simple link
• Concept-based link
• Simple search
• Concept-based search
• Intelligent agent
• Calculator

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Discussion

• Resources are available
• Simple interactions are usually possible
• Interaction method (format) issues
• Give me a page vs. Give me the answer
• Standards needed for asking questions
• Standards needed for passing parameters
• Representation (terminology) issues
• Clinical systems use homegrown standards
• Resources (except PubMed) dont use any standards
  (i.e., they are indexed by text word)

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Conclusions

• Resources exist
• Creative solutions required
• Engaging resource providers is next step

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Acknowledgments

• National Library of Medicine research grant
• National Library of Medicine training grant
• National Institute of Nursing Research
• www.dmi.columbia.edu/homepages/ciminoj/Infobuttons
  .html