Computer supported cooperative work for medicine imaging

For many years, physicians and computer scientists have tried to define the best structure of a medical record. Many of the solutions suggested were unsuccessful. This is due to the complexity of the handled data either by physicians or nurses. A medical record is not only a data base of structured information: it is a file where different types of documents are collected, a tool for testing diagnostic possiblities and therapy strategies, and a draft before the composition of a medical letter. The emergence of new computer possibilities for the management of non-literal data makes it possible to create softwares that look like this paradigm: multi-media records, hypertexts, hypermedias. The transfer of complex data structures is easier by means of new networks as ISDNs. NUMERIS is, in France, an ISD Network through which images, records, phone calls can be transmitted at a very low cost. The use of this network may be essential for sending multi-media medical records between hospitals and physicians. Although computers are familiar in medicine, they have scarecely been used to assist people who work together. The applications are mainly used by "single-user" systems. By means of multi-media applications and the use of modern networks, new types of collaboration between distant physicians will become possible, introducing the concepts of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work in Medicine.