Using Context to Improve Information Supply in the Medical Sector

The consideration of context information in physicians search for medical knowledge and information offers good prospects to improve the quality of the delivered search results from heterogeneous eResources. Within the scope of this contribution the authors introduce their information logistic approach towards a context-based information supply for physicians. Basically, this approach encloses a comprehensive context model, which is divided into the four sub models “process”, “clinical case”, “physician” and “environment”. The prototypical implementation of a context application uses an excerpt from the model. The application is based on a context middleware and was used as a basis for an empiric validation of the approach during practical tests and two laboratory experiments. The contribution concludes with an outlook on future needs for research regarding context-based information supply and information logistics in general.

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