Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2000 Mar-Apr;7(2):135-45.
doi: 10.1136/jamia.2000.0070135.

Integration and beyond: linking information from disparate sources and into workflow

W W Stead  1 , R A Miller, M A Musen, W R Hersh
Affiliations
Review

Integration and beyond: linking information from disparate sources and into workflow

W W Stead et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2000 Mar-Apr.

Abstract

The vision of integrating information-from a variety of sources, into the way people work, to improve decisions and process-is one of the cornerstones of biomedical informatics. Thoughts on how this vision might be realized have evolved as improvements in information and communication technologies, together with discoveries in biomedical informatics, and have changed the art of the possible. This review identified three distinct generations of "integration" projects. First-generation projects create a database and use it for multiple purposes. Second-generation projects integrate by bringing information from various sources together through enterprise information architecture. Third-generation projects inter-relate disparate but accessible information sources to provide the appearance of integration. The review suggests that the ideas developed in the earlier generations have not been supplanted by ideas from subsequent generations. Instead, the ideas represent a continuum of progress along the three dimensions of workflow, structure, and extraction.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Decision tree for choosing between capture of structured, coded data and capture of data as text or image.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Integration of information into clinical workflow. KB indicates knowledge base.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • Integration and beyond: panel discussion.
    Stead WW, Miller RA, Musen MA, Hersh WR. Stead WW, et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2000 Mar-Apr;7(2):146-8. doi: 10.1136/jamia.2000.0070146. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2000. PMID: 10730597 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

References

    1. Stead WW. Information Technology Video: Scenarios 2 [videotape]. Nashville, Tenn: Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 1998.
    1. Stead WW. A quarter century of computer-based medical records. MD Comput. 1989;6(2): 74-81. - PubMed
    1. Stead EA. Stead WW. Computers and medical practice: old dreams and current realities. MD Comput. 1985;2(6): 26-31. - PubMed
    1. Stead WW, Heyman A, Thompson HK, Hammond WE. Computer-assisted interview of patients with functional headache. Arch Intern Med. 1972;129: 950-5. - PubMed
    1. Stead WW, Brame RG, Hammond WE, Jelovsek FR, Estes EH Jr, Parker RT. A computerized obstetrical record. Obstet Gynecol. 1977;49: 502-9. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms