Information system modeling for biomedical imaging applications

Information system modeling has historically been relegated to a low priority among the designers of information systems. Often times, there is a rush to design and implement hardware and software solutions after only the briefest assessments of the domain requirements. Although this process results in a rapid development cycle, the system usually does not satisfy the needs of the users and the developers are forced to re-program certain aspects of the system. It would be much better to create an accurate model of the system based on the domain needs so that the implementation of the solution satisfies the needs of the users immediately. It would also be advantageous to build extensibility into the model so that updates to the system could be carried out in an organized fashion. The significance of this research is the development of a new formal framework for the construction of a multimedia medical information system. This formal framework is constructed using visual modeling which provides a way of thinking about problems using models organized around real- world ideas. These models provide an abstract way to view complex problems, making them easier for one to understand. The formal framework is the result of an object-oriented analysis and design process that translates the systems requirements and functionality into software models. The usefulness of this information framework is demonstrated with two different applications in epilepsy research and care, i.e., surgical planning of epilepsy and decision threshold determination.