We will develop a multimedia medical information system for distributed real-time consultation. The system will be composed of objects capable of containing structured text, images and sound. Tools to retrieve and modify these objects anywhere over a network will be provided. In Phase I, we will use object-oriented techniques to develop a prototypical system quickly by using commercially available object database and multimedia capable workstation. We will prove our research concept and use it as a vehicle for innovation in multimedia interaction and distributed real-time access. In Phase II, we plan to commercialize the experimental system from Phase I by improving the tools, adding documentation and installing the system in select beta sites. Later we will formulate and execute a marketing plan, and develop interfaces to existing medical systems. Using an object architecture will result in a superior system, because of the ease of developing tools, faster performance for multimedia objects and the ease of customization for various health care facilities.Awardee's statement of the potential commercial applications of the research:The systems in use today are textual and hard to use. A system that allows more information to be stored by using images and voice annotations to text allows better and faster decisions to be made. Ease-of-use and learning are addressed by using a proven approach-hypertext-to these objects for retrieval and modification. We improve the information content while making interaction easier.National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
