Association for
Veterinary Informatics
NEWSLETTER
September-October, 1996
Noell Moseley (Memphis, TN) - President; Harmon Rogers (Lake Stevens,
WA) - President-Elect; James T. Case (UC-Davis) - Secretary Treasurer; Ronald
D. Smith (Illinois) - Newsletter Editor.
IN THIS ISSUE
ASSOCIATION NEWS
How to Contact AVI
AVI EMR WG Minutes and Mission Statement
CORRESPONDENCE
Web-Based Veterinary Electronic Medical Records
- Discussion Group
MINUTES OF ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING
OF THE
ASSOCIATION FOR VETERINARY INFORMATICS
PRODUCT AVAILABILITY/REVIEWS/COMPARISONS
HandiSTATUS Version 1.31 Now Available
INTERNET RESOURCES
Radiological Society of North America Electronic
Journal
Internet Medical Terminology Resources
KENNEL-L - Kennel Management Discussion Group
Livestock Weekly
BRAVENET - Brazilian Veterinary Web Sites
HOSPITAL-WEBMASTER - Internet and medical Information
NAHMS Homepage
NEWS AND COMMENTARY
Flashback: The Technological Revolution
What People Put Up With on the Web
NLM/AHCPR Large Scale Vocabulary Test
Study on Rural Internet Use
EpiVetNet Newsletter and Web Site Update
Funds Awarded for Study of International Classification
of Diseases
MEETINGS AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
Classification and Concepts Conference; Jacksonville,
FL
1997 Computers in Healthcare Education Symposium;
Philadelphia, PA
Veterinary Informatics at the 5th World Equine
Veterinary Association; Padova, Italy
ROADMAP96 - The Roadmap96 Workshop
SUGGESTED READING
ASSOCIATION NEWS
How to Contact AVI
Applications for membership, accompanied by a check for $35 payable to the
AVI, should be sent to:
Dr. James T. Case; Secretary Treasurer, AVI; 1590 Augusta Ct., Dixon, CA
95620
Phone: 916/752-4408; FAX: 916/752-5680; e-mail: JimCase@aol.com
Dr. Case is responsible for distribution of the hardcopy version of the
AVI Newsletter.
Newsletter items can be sent to:
Dr. Ronald D. Smith, Newsletter Editor, AVI; UI College of Veterinary Medicine;
2001 South Lincoln; Urbana, IL 61801.
Phone: 217/333-2449; FAX: 217/333-4628; e-mail: rd-smith@uiuc.edu
If you are an AVI member and would like to be on the AVI Newsletter electronic
distribution list, send an e-mail message to the Newsletter Editor. Although
the electronic version is only an ASCII (text) file, it's faster, searchable,
easier to store and retrieve, and environmentally friendly.
Current and past issues of the Newsletter on the Web at the following URL:
http://netvet.wustl.edu/avi.htm.
AVI EMR WG Minutes and Mission Statement
From: Franklin L Pollari <fpollari@UOGUELPH.CA>
EMR Working Group Members and VETINFO-netters:
At the first meeting of the AVI Electronic Medical Record Working Group
in July, the group discussed the problems which this group will address
in an attempt to develop a mission statement (see minutes below). I thought
it might be useful at this point to put a draft of a mission statement on
the table for comment. Does this cover the areas we discussed? Are there
other areas we did not identify that should be considered by this group?
Does it need to be more specific? You are welcome to comment even if you
are not a member of the working group.
Thanks,
Frank Pollari, Chair
EMR Working Group
fpollari@ovcnet.uoguelph.ca
----------------------------------------------------------
The mission of the AVI Electronic Medical Record Working Group is the promotion
of knowledge and development of standard guides, specifications, practices,
and terminology for the architecture, content, and communication of information
used within veterinary care, including patient-specific information and
medical knowledge. The working group will also address policies for integrity
and confidentiality and computer procedures that support the uses of data
and healthcare decision making. The working group's activities will be coordinated
with those of other relevant committees and organizations internal and external
to AVI.
------------------------------------------------------------
Electronic Medical Record Working Group Meeting July 23, 1996 10:00-12:00
Louisville, Kentucky
The first meeting of the EMR working group was well attended with broad
representation of stakeholders in the veterinary EMR. A sign-up sheet was
passed and 32 participants completed the form.
After a brief introduction and description of the proposed organization
of AVI including the incorporation of VISO as a standing committee, the
proposed agenda for the meeting was presented. The two items listed were
to 1) produce a mission statement to define the areas and goals of the working
group and 2) determine a project for this year.
The group began the process of by listing problems that needed to be addressed
to develop an EMR. The following is the list generated:
1 No standards for data set
2 Redundant efforts to collect primary data
3 Focus on data, not on information
4 Problems of accuracy of data, miscoding (the summarization process)
5 Lack of completeness
6 Availability
7 Security
8 Confidentiality
9 Audit trails of data sources and changes
10 Authentication
11 Retrieval of information
12 Decision Support
13 Flexibility and extensibility
14 Legality
15 Records are not self-explanatory
16 Economics of systems $$
17 Linking of different functions - clinical, financial, diagnostic
18 Ease / Speed / Responsiveness
19 Human element - usability - positive feedback
20 Training re system use
21 Marketing of concept of veterinary electronic medical records
22 Fragmentation of development efforts
Duane Steward presented a method of viewing the mission statement which
I will crudely try to summarize.
The Mission Statement
-specifies objectives
-which each have attributes
-for which measurable goals can be identified
The group described the Stakeholders of the veterinary EMR :
1 Clinicians - Practitioners and referring vets
2 Patient
3 Staff
4 Industry
5 Regulatory agencies
6 Owners
7 Public health
8 Students
9 Researchers
10 Educators
11 Medical Records Staff
12 Administrators
13 Veterinary Technicians
The group then began to describe some requirements of a veterinary EMR:
1 Longitudinal case record - chronological - problem oriented
2 Trend detection
3 Epidemiology
4 Outcome measures
5 Safety / efficacy
6 Standardized exchange
7 User friendliness
As we were running short of time, we agreed to continue the discussion on
VETINFO (listserv@wuvmd.wustl.edu).
Two potential projects were mentioned:
1 Produce a white paper defining functions for the VEMR
2 Detail differences between VEMR and human EMR.
However, there was no time for discussion so this will also be addressed
via electronic communication.
CORRESPONDENCE
Web-Based Veterinary Electronic Medical Records - Discussion Group
From: Holly Farish-Hunt <hfhunt@IX.NETCOM.COM>
(Editor's note: Though many of you will not be attending the AMIA meeting,
I thought I should include Ms. Farish-Hunt's message in case you'd like
to be included in any follow-up discussions.)
After exchanging some thoughts with Ken Boschert relevant to ideas about
veterinary medical records development and group practice management, he
suggested that I post to this list to seek any indication of interest in
organizing an informal gathering at AMIA. He also was not aware of any formal
WG meeting scheduled at AMIA and I saw none listed in the preconference
publication.
I am by discipline and profession a nurse practitioner that has been involved
in everything from academic teaching to private practice over more years
than I care to mention. For the past several years I have been involved
with healthcare software design and development and now have a privately
held company developing healthcare applications utilizing Java and web technology
to address what we believe to be critical solutions for the healthcare marketplace.
In addition to my healthcare practice with humans, I for many years bred,
handled and showed cocker spaniels in and out of our country which exposed
me to some very interesting study and knowledge of genetics, animal diseases
and veterinary practice. While on the academic faculty of the University
of Florida I was priviledged to share a good deal of clinical knowledge
and practice with colleagues in the College of Veterinary Medicine in particular,
opthamology, hematology and reproductive medicine.
My entry into healthcare informatics resulted from much frustration with
major helathcare software vendors producing applications that did not adequately
address the issues of professional end-users mainly, it seemed, due to a
small amount or no professional domain knowledge being incorporated into
the problem solutions analysis and design teams producing the software design
specifications. My experiences have been enlightening.
I have followed, although without contribution to this point, the list discussions
re: AVI-EMR WG mission statement. Is it possible that there will be continued
discussions at AMIA in two weeks?
One of my partners and I would be interested in gathering a small group
of practicing veterinarians, with an interest in application development
and or practice problems/solutions, to have a discussions of ideas surrounding
the development of web technology solutions for the VEMR as well as concepts
of group managed practice. We would be happy to provide lunch or afternoon
drinks for your participation depending on the gathering time.
If any of you are inspired to dialogue with us please send me a brief note
indicating your interest, your area(s) of practice, professional affiliation
and days/hours of availability. I will then send out a confirmation of space
and time this next week prior to our arrival at AMIA. We will be on-site
Friday evening thru Wednesday noon.
Thank you for your interest.
Holly Farish-Hunt, EdS,MS,ARNP
hfhunt@ix.netcom.com
MINUTES OF ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING
OF THE
ASSOCIATION FOR VETERINARY INFORMATICS
12:30 PM July 23, 1996
Louisville, Kentucky
Reported by Dr. Harmon Rogers <72467.1505@CompuServe.COM>
Dr. Noell Moseley, President, presiding
Attendance
Thirty-eight members and guests were in attendance including members of
the Veterinary Information Standards Organization.
Approval of minutes
The minutes of the 1995 Annual Meeting of the AVI were approved as submitted.
Financial Report
Dr. Robert Featherston, AVI Past President, read the financial report as
submitted by Dr. Jim Case, AVI Secretary - Treasurer who was unable to attend
the meeting. Income for the year July 1, 1995, to June 30, 1996 was $5,125.
All income came from member dues. $3,575 was expended for the year. The
end of year cash assets was $13,076.68.
Membership Report
Dr. Robert Featherston read the membership report submitted by Dr. Jim Case.
Two membership renewal mailings were made during 1995-1996. The first was
in December 1995. Applications for AVI membership are available online at
the AVI home page on the World Wide Web. (http://netvet.wustl.edu/aviapply.htm).
Prior to July 23, 1996, AVI had 146 active members including 126 regular
members, 19 associate and 1 corporate. There were 152 members during 1994-1995.
Additional members were enrolled on July 23, 1996.
Newsletter Report
Dr. Ron Smith, Newsletter Editor, reported that a hard copy of the newsletter
is being mailed to members who desire it. The newsletter is also available
in electronic formats. A text only format is emailed to requesting members.
The newsletter is also available in a password protected area of the AVI
website. (http://netvet.wustl.edu/avi.htm)
Production and mailing of the newsletter is the most expensive budget item
of the AVI.
Submission of newsletter articles is encouraged from all AVI members. Articles
are anticipated from the working groups as they continue activities.
Readership of the online version of the newsletter dropped after it became
password protected. The Executive Committee has decided to remove the password
protection to increase readership and promote the discipline of Veterinary
Informatics.
Report from other organizations
American Animal Hospital Association
Dr. Harmon Rogers, AVI president-elect and Chair of the AAHA Informatics
Committee, reported AAHA is working on development of a method to collect
clinical data from clinical practices. Coordination and cooperation with
others working in the same area is requested.
American Veterinary Medical Association, Informatics Committee
Dr. Ken Boschert, member of the AVMA Informatics Committee, reported AVMA
continues to develop the SNOMED International nomenclature with the College
of American Pathologists. AVMA is also working with continuation and enhancement
of the Veterinary Medical Database and with electronic member communication
on the Network of Animal Health on CompuServe. The AVMA has also funded
an increased World Wide Web presence and plans to take over operation of
the NetVet web site.
American College of Veterinary Informatics
Dr. Ron Smith reported the new registered agent of the Incorporated ACVI
is Dr. Bruce Little, Executive Director of the AVMA. ACVI, which is doing
business as the American Academy of Veterinary Informatics, two goals are
to achieve specialty status and to promote the discipline of Veterinary
Informatics.
Veterinary Informatics Standards Organization
President Art Smith reported VISO is seeking to increase its association
with veterinary clinicians and other veterinarians. VISO believes an association
with the AVI is in the best interests of the profession. VISO will be holding
working meetings and a business meeting later during the 1996 AVMA annual
meeting.
Report from the AVI President
Dr. Noell Moseley reported the 1996 Dick Talbot Memorial AVI Informatics
Symposium was an unqualified success. All sessions were well attended and
interest was high. AVI plans to reorganize as an umbrella organization providing
support for AVI working groups, the ACVI, and the VISO. A review of the
bylaws and a vote of the general membership by mail may be required to accomplish
the reorganization.
A new AVI logo has not been selected.
Report from AVI Working Groups and Committees
Communications and Practice Management Working Groups have not met, nor
has the Education Committee.
Computer Assisted Instruction
Dr. Cheryl Dhein, Chair of the CAI Working Group, reported a web site for
the CAI has been created. (http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/avcai/avcai.html).
The working group wants to publish on the site descriptions of CAI projects
and reviews of tools used for development of CAI. The working group also
believes it is important to develop a means to validate, review and accredit
CAI projects. Copyright issues are also being considered by the group including.
A release form to be signed by animal owners to enable use of images of
their animals is being posted on the web site.
Electronic Medical Records and Standards
Dr. Frank Pollari, Chair of the Electronic Medical Records group, reported
that a joint meeting was held with the Standards working group. Problems
associated with electronic medical records were discussed and users of the
information contained in electronic medical records were identified. A mission
statement for the group will be developed. Further discussions of the group
will occur online on the VetInfo list. To enroll on the VetInfo list send
a message to listserv@wu.vmd.wustl.edu
with subscribe vetinfo FirstName LastName in the body of the message. The
working group plans to move to more specific projects such as defining functions
an electronic medical record systems will contain.
PRODUCT AVAILABILITY/REVIEWS/COMPARISONS
HandiSTATUS Version 1.31 Now Available
From: TBERNARD@iica.ac.cr (Theresa
Bernardo)
HandiSTATUS version 1.31 is now available via FTP. This version has important
new features. In particular, functions that allow users to maintain their
own data and notes (see file HSTUTD.ENG). For those of you who are not familiar
with the program see "about HandiSTATUS" below.
The following is an example of an FTP session to download HandiSTATUS via
FTP, which you should be able to replicate on your own system (remember
that it is case sensitive):
ftp tlaloc.iica.ac.cr
Remote User Name: hstatus
Remote Password: internet1
ftp> binary
ftp> cd english
(there is a choice of English, French or Spanish, however HandiSTATUS has
been unloaded it is still possible to change the language from within the
program.)
ftp> dir
total 4332
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root other 1737 Aug 06 17:01 CONFIG.MEM
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root other 1389072 Aug 06 17:01 HS_0196.EXE
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root other 762727 Aug 06 17:01 HS_D.EXE
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root other 50074 Aug 06 17:01 INSTALL.EXE
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root other 112 Aug 06 17:06 MANUAL
ftp> mget * (or get the specific files you want in upper case) mget CONFIG.MEM
?(n==don't,a==do all,q=do no more,y==do)
?a
ftp> quit
This will transfer all of the program files and manual files. If you want
to transfer manual files separately change to the directory MANUAL (cd MANUAL)
and get the file(s) you want.
HS version 1.31 consists of the four files found in the subdirectory english:
CONFIG.MEM
INSTALL.EXE (the installation program)
HS_0196.EXE (a compressed file of the main program)
HS_D.EXE (a compressed file of disease distribution data for the years 1990
- 1993)
If you have downloaded the HandiSTATUS files to the subdirectory where you
wish to use them, you can unpack the compressed executable files by typing
the filename (minus the extension .EXE) and pressing [Enter]. For example,
to unpack the files in HS_0196.EXE type HS_0196[Enter]. Once you have unpacked
the files type HS[Enter] to begin the program. You may wish to erase the
original compressed files to free up disk space.
If you wish to move HandiSTATUS to another machine, or distribute one or
more copies to colleagues, copy the files config.mem, install.exe and HS0196.exe
to one high density diskette and label it as diskette one of two (1/2).
Copy HS_D.exe to another high density diskette and label it as diskette
two of two (2/2). To install the program, log to the floppy drive where
you have inserted diskette 1 and type install[Enter], then follow the instructions
that appear on the screen.
The manual is available in different formats in the subdirectory Manual:
HANDIREF.ENG (previous version of the manual in WordPerfect
5.1)
HSTUTD.ENG (updates to previous version of manual in WP5.1)
HSMAN2_A.DOC (new manual in Word for Windows 2.0)
HSMAN2_A.MCW (new manual in Word for Macintosh 5.0)
Channel capacity into Costa Rica is limited so it is recommended that you
try off-peak hours. If you encounter any error messages while unpacking
compressed files an error may have occurred in transmission so try downloading
the files again. If you have other any problems or suggestions please send
them to TBernard@iica.ac.cr.
Dr. Theresa Bernardo; Agricultural Health; IICA Sede Central; Apdo. 55-2200
Coronado; COSTA RICA
Fax: (506) 229-47-41; Tel: (506) 229-02-22 ext 2652
About HandiSTATUS:
The database HandiSTATUS: Help with World Animal Disease Status, is in use
in more than 100 countries from around the world. It provides information
(both textual and mapped displays) on the global distribution of diseases
that must be considered in the international trade of animals and animal
commodities.
The program will operate in English, French or Spanish. It features maps
of distribution of List A, B (OIE/FAO) and List C (FAO) diseases (by region
and by species affected). In addition to assisting in risk identification
for import/export decisions, it provides access to the OIE's International
Animal Health Code recommendations for safe importation of products, lists
of reference laboratories and information on disease transmission.
To help fulfill the need for updated and/or validated data, users can now
generate and maintain their own data on disease distribution. Users can
also include notes by country, by disease, or by country and disease.
The program now requires 9.5 MB of hard disk space due to the additional
years' data. This will increase to 10.5 MB if you generate user data and
will expand according to the volume of notes that you add. If you need to
recover some of this space it is possible to delete the data for one or
more years. For example, you could delete the data for 1990 as follows:
del ??????90.*[Enter]. To delete other years' data, just substitute the
year (eg. 91 or 92) in place of 90. If the year for which data is deleted
was the selected year in HandiSTATUS, a software error will occur the next
time HandiSTATUS is run.
The release of version 1.31 marks the completion of HandiSTATUS development
by Charles Schotman and Theresa Bernardo. Future updating and development
will be the responsibility of the OIE. Requests for the new manual or future
updates of the program should be addressed to the OIE Central Bureau:
Dr. Thierry Chillaud; Information and International Trade; Office International
des Epizooties (OIE); 12, rue de Prony; 75017 Paris, FRANCE
Tel: (33-1) 44 15 18 88; Fax: (33-1) 42 67 09 87
HandiSTATUS should soon be available at various web-sites around the world,
such as the OIE Central Bureau in France (http://www.oie.org)
and Epivetnet in New Zealand (http://www.massey.ac.nz/~wwvetsci/epihome.htm).
The OIE has also assumed responsibility for conducting pilot testing of
HandiREPORT - a specialized copy of the program for completion of emergency,
monthly and annual reports for submission to the appropriate international
organizations. HandiREPORT will be for the exclusive use of the appropriate
government authority in each country.
The following organizations have made financial contributions toward the
development of HandiSTATUS: the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation
on Agriculture (IICA), the OIE, the University of Guelph/Agriculture Canada/Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA/APHIS).
Please feel free to copy the program and distribute it to any other interested
persons.
INTERNET RESOURCES
Radiological Society of North America Electronic
Journal
The RSNA Electronic Journal, or RSNA EJ, is an electronic journal created
and distributed on the Internet. Its purpose is to use the medium of the
Internet to improve the communication of scientific and clinical research
in radiology. The URL is...
http://ej.rsna.org/
The content of RSNA EJ covers every area of radiology from organ systems
to imaging modalities and other technology (including computers in radiology).
In addition to the criteria traditionally used in evaluating material for
publication, articles should be selected on the basis of their distinctive
suitability for electronic publication.
Editor: Laurens V. Ackerman, MD, PhD
E-mail: ackerman@ej.rsna.org
Internet Medical Terminology Resources
From: Josef Ingenerf <ingenerf@gsf.de>
I have prepared a comprehensive, clear structured set of pages with annotated
links to the topic INTERNET MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY RESOURCES with the startpage
under
http://www.gsf.de/MEDWIS/activity/med_term.html
that might be of help for all those people who are looking for organisations,
research groups, documents and publications, software and vocabularies,
interactive online access to applications and other resource lists.
They are marked as online or not online available and for the second one
a seperate bibliography is added. The resources are devided in sections:
- Diseases and Procedure Classification (German View)
--(ICD-9, ICD-10, OP-301, DIMDI, AWMF, ...)
- Diseases and Procedure Classification (International View)
--(ICD-9-CM, ICD-10, CPT, DRGs, WHO, SESAME, ...)
- Other Medical Vocabularies
--(SNOMED, MeSH, Read-Code, ...)
- Integrated Vocabularies & Internet-/Intranet-based Applications
--(UMLS, InterMED, Cliniweb, ...)
- Formal Reconstruction of Medical Vocabularies
--(GALEN, CANON, SIR, ...)
- Standards in Medicine
--(Vocabularies, Patient Records, Communication, Knowledge Bases, ...)
- Other Associated Topics
--(Terminology, Ontology, AI & Knowledge Repres., Comp. Linguistics,
...)
It would be nice, if you can add this link to the MMATRIX-list section Clinical
Practise, item Classification.
Dr. Josef Ingenerf; GSF-Medis Institut; Postfach 11 29; 85758 Oberschleissheim/Munich,
Germany; Tel.: 089/3187-4164; Fax: 089/3187-3370; www: http://www.gsf.de/MEDWIS/ji.html
KENNEL-L - Kennel Management Discussion Group
The contact name and address are changed.
KENNEL-L is a private, moderated discussion list dedicated to Kennel Management
issues. This list was established to provide a forum for anyone interested
in the management of boarding kennels or the pet services industry.
To subscribe, send the following command in the BODY of mail to
LISTSERV@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM
SUB KENNEL-L your full name
Moderator: Pati Hatfield <hatfield@southeast.net>
Livestock Weekly
From: bfrank@livestockweekly.com
http://www.livestockweekly.com
Weekly livestock publication featuring cattle, sheep, goats. Advertising
for ranches, cattle, sheep, goats, horses, farms, employment, business opportunities,
feed, seed, hunting, exotics, pasture.
BRAVENET - Brazilian Veterinary Web Sites
From: "Mauricio Garcia, DVM, MS, PhD" <mauricio@TECHNOVET.COM.BR>
Friends! Please, note that BRAVENET URL has changed to:
http://www.technovet.com.br/bravenet/
BRAVENET is a collection of brazilian veterinary sites.
Mauricio Garcia, DVM, MS, PhD
Address: Rua Jacui, 90 - CEP 04.053-010; Sao Paulo, SP, BRAZIL
E-mail: mauricio@technovet.com.br
InterNet: http://www.technovet.com.br/
Phone/Fax: +55-11-5589-2716
HOSPITAL-WEBMASTER - Internet and medical Information
From: BOYER Celia <Celia.Boyer@hon.ch>
The HOSPITAL-WEBMASTER list is, also, available on the Health On the Net
Foundation web site (automatic subscription and previous E-mail listed by
subject, date and authors) at:
http://www.hon.ch/MailingList/hospital-webmaster.html
The HOSPITAL-WEBMASTER list is specially suited but not only for medical
web site webmasters, for the most effective creation and use of Web applications
for medical purposes. At present, the purposes of the HOSPITAL-WEBMASTER
list are two-fold:
- Exchanging information and ideas with other hospital webmasters.
- Providing a world-wide communication-forum for all aspects of Internet
technology applied to the medical domain.
To subscribe please send mail with this form:
From: Your name
To: HON-LIST@hon.ch
Subject:
Body:
subscribe Hospital-Webmaster Your name <Your email address>
Do not fill in the "Subject:" field. After subscription, to post
to the list reply to:
Hospital-Webmaster@hon.ch
Owner: Celia Boyer Hospital-Webmaster-owner@hon.ch
NAHMS Homepage
From: ddargatz@aphis.usda.gov
(Dave Dargatz)
This message is to inform you that National Animal Health Monitoring System
(NAHMS) information (such as U.S. dairy, beef cow-calf, beef feedlot, and
swine health and management reports) is now accessible (and searchable)
via our new homepage.
The Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health (CEAH) have just posted a
Home Page on the World Wide Web (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/ceah)!
NAHMS reports and info sheets since 1991 are among the information files
included under the Center for Animal Health Monitoring, most through searchable
.pdf files. We hope the web page will help us reach new information users
and make it easier for our existing customers to find needed information.
We would like immediate feedback from NAHMS information users! Please let
us know what you think about content, user-friendliness, or anything else
of interest through NAHMS_info@aphis.usda.gov. Automatic e-mail opportunities
are built into the Home Page at several points.
Dave Dargatz, DVM, PhD; Beef Specialist; USDA-APHIS-Veterinary Services;
Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health 555 S. Howes; Ft. Collins, CO
80521
(970) 490-8000; (970) 490-7899 (fax)
e-mail: ddargatz@aphis.usda.gov
NEWS AND COMMENTARY
Flashback: The Technological Revolution
From: Edupage, 28 December 1995
The December 18th edition of Digital Media magazine points to the Web site
of The Atlantic Monthly and says "This compilation of articles by MIT
intellectuals Vannevar Bush and Martin Greenberger are harbingers of the
networked infoculture of today, written respectively in 1945 and 1964. Bush,
a former MIT president and government war researcher, called for efforts
and progress in information access that resemble current hypertext, while
Greenberger, a computer scientist, uses Bush's proposals to outline the
new market possibilities for information services, online commerce and community.
These gems from the past are a testament to The Atlantic's commitment to
the significance of ideas at
<http://www2.theAtlantic.com/atlantic/atlweb/flashbks/computer/tech.htm>
(Digital Media 18 Dec 95 p27).
In the article he wrote more than three decades ago, Greenberger made the
visionary prediction: "Barring unforeseen obstacles, an on-line interactive
computer service, provided commercially by an information utility, may be
as commonplace by 2000 AD as telephone service is today. By 2000 AD man
should have a much better comprehension of himself and his system, not because
he will be innately any smarter than he is today, but because he will have
learned to use imaginatively the most powerful amplifier of intelligence
yet devised."
An in-depth interview with Martin Greenberger will be featured in the March/April
issue of Educom Review.
What People Put Up With on the Web
"EDUCOM Edupage Mailing List" <edupage@elanor.oit.unc.edu>
World Wide Web developer Tim Berners-Lee never intended for ordinary folk
to have to learn "http://" addresses and HTML formatting: "The
original ideal was that anybody would very easily be able to write documents
that could be connected through hypertext links. What has surprised me is
the way people have been prepared to put up with manually encoding text.
HTML was never supposed to be something that you would see -- it was intended
to be something produced by an editor program. An analogy is with word processors.
Computer users don't have to write in all kinds of codes to format their
document with fonts, margins and so on. So it staggers me that people have
actually put up with having to write HTML by hand. Similarly, I had not
expected people to have to work out the hypertext links by looking up and
typing in those long, complex codes for addressing. URL syntax was never
intended for human consumption. It was intended for a machine." (Technology
Review Jul 96 p32)
NLM/AHCPR Large Scale Vocabulary Test
From: wth@nlm.nih.gov
NLM and AHCPR are sponsoring a test to determine the extent to which a group
of controlled vocabularies, taken as a set, cover the concepts and terms
needed in automated health care and public health systems. The test relies
heavily on UMLS technology. We are hoping for broad participation from those
engaged in developing and using health data systems.
To review the purpose of the test, the procedures to be followed, and a
sample interaction with the special tester's interface, consult the "New
& Noteworthy" section on NLM's web site (www.nlm.nih.gov).
To participate, testers will need their own IP address, a fast Internet
connection (modem access is not recommended), and a powerful workstation
with the latest version of Netscape (version 2.01 or higher).
Those who wish to participate in the Large Scale Vocabulary test should
register by sending the following information in a message addressed to
umlsks@nlm.nih.gov
Full Name
Mailing Address
telephone number
email address
IP address
When NLM is ready to receive test input (probably within the next two weeks),
those who have registered with be sent a message with the URL of the test
interface. All test data must be submitted by December 15, 1996.
Interested consortia, organizations, or individuals with a minimum of 1,000
discrete concepts useful in health care or public health applications may
compete for funds to support test participation. A request for quotations
for this competitive procurement will be issued within the next several
weeks. It will be announced in the Grants and Contracts section of NLM's
web site. Please note that successful bidders will be reimbursed only for
testing done AFTER they are awarded a purchase order by NLM.
Study on Rural Internet Use
From: Rural Extension Studies Survey <survey@tdg.res.uoguelph.ca>
Rural areas are often at a disadvantage when trying to access emerging technologies.
A group of researchers at the University of Guelph are exploring how rural
residents are able to access, use, and adapt to the Internet.
The purpose of this study is to determine how rural residents differ from
urban residents in their use of the Internet, and to determine the impact
of Internet use on agriculture and agriculture related businesses. The information
gathered will be used to help eliminate barriers to Internet use, and to
improve the quality of Internet services offered to rural residents.
Responses to the survey will be completely anonymous, however once the survey
has been completed, participants will be offered the opportunity to enter
a draw for a free pass to an upcoming conference on Rural Telecommunications,
and a University of Guelph sweatshirt and baseball cap.
Your assistance would be valuable to this study. Please take the time to
fill out the survey and alert others of it's existence. The survey and more
information regarding the study is located at:
Internet use in Rural Areas http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/rural/
For those who do not have web access, an alternative format is available
on request. Please send a message to survey@tdg.uoguelph.ca
for more information.
Thank you for your assistance,
Don Richardson, Linda Mayhew and Wendy Truelove
EpiVetNet Newsletter and Web Site Update
From: "Dirk U. Pfeiffer" <D.U.Pfeiffer@massey.ac.nz>
Hello Epivet-L'ers,
just a few bits of information about EpiVetNet, the WWW site which we have
made available in April this year. For those who do not know, its address
is
http://epiweb.massey.ac.nz
The response has been really good judging from the number of connections
from computers all around the world. These hits are actually logged, so
that we can monitor the interest to the site as well as to individual pages
and items available. So beware, Big Brother is watching you !!!! But don't
worry, the system does not tell me who you are, only what the name of your
computer is !
I also had a number of positive and encouraging responses from individuals
through electronic mail. Thanks very much !
In terms of the additions and corrections which people have asked me to
implement, I apologize for sometimes taking a while to get them done. At
the moment, I think, I have done everything I have been asked to do. But
please remember, my webmaster activity is something I usually do after hours.
Given the recent advances (?) in web browser software I have changed the
appearance of EpiVetNet by introducing an interface based on frames. I am
also making extensive usage of tables which require a web browser understanding
a recent version of HTML, the language these web pages are written in. The
old interface will still be available in that browsers not capable of frames
will automatically show the old interface. In order to see the frames you
will need a reasonably recent web browser such as MS Internet Explorer 3.0
(can be downloaded for free from Microsoft web site). Please let me know
if there are problems with this new interface or with the links on some
of the pages. Some of the links are very slow and you may get an error message
due to an overloaded connection to the particular site.
To my surprise, I have not had comments in terms of the connection to our
site being too slow. May be, the world truly is a global village after all.
In terms of additions, I have added more publications (only my own as nobody
so far has supplied theirs) in Adobe Acrobat format. Have moved away from
Postscript following the current trend towards Acrobat as a safe (can add
security), efficient (good compresssion) and portable (Windows, Unix, Mac
etc.) document format. It allows people to read the document on screen,
print the whole or only sections. The new web browsers allow reading these
files during the downloading process. So it may even help protecting a couple
of trees from being felled. Remember that the reader for these Acrobat files
is free and can be downloaded from the Adobe web site. If people have problems
obtaining it, send me a message and I will post it as an attachment to an
e-mail.
This particular format is currently being evaluated in terms of its usefulness
for submitting manuscripts to Preventive Veterinary Medicine. It could potentially
speed up the refereeing process substantially. May be, that is !! Apparently
some journals are already doing it !
I am currently preparing the proceedings of a seminar on primary animal
health care in Southern Africa which was held in Feb/Mar in Malawi and plan
to make the contributions available as Acrobat files.
We had the second PanPacific conference of the Australian / New Zealand
veterinary associations this year in Christchurch and I am trying to convince
Joanna McKenzie hope she is going to read this) to make the proceedings
of the epidemiology sessions (which Joanna did a great job at organizing)
available as Acrobat files. They include two papers by Hollis Erb who taught
us amongst other things about path analysis. If anybody wants a paper copy,
contact Joanna McKenzie (check out e-mail directory on EpiVetNet), but you
will have to pay !@#$#
I am also investigating if it is useful to make presentations available
through the Internet, such as Powerpoint presentations (through Active Movie
Player) which can be saved in a specific format that allows display through
the web browser.
Klaas Frankena has indicated that it might be possible to make the proceedings
of the annual meetings of the Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive
Medicine available using the Acrobat format.
I have had discussions with Michael Ward regarding the newsletter which
is being produced by the Epidemiology Chapter of the Australian College
of Veterinary Scientists and could possibly be made available through a
web site.
I think we should also make datasets available which can be used by people
for teaching purposes. So far, I have provided my lecture notes and added
the exercises which I am using for undergraduate teaching. I hope to place
the notes for the Master of Veterinary Studies (Epidemiology) on the site
as well. But that will take a while as we have just started teaching this
course last year. My approach with these notes is that they should not replace
the lectures, meaning that students still have to attend the lectures in
order to make sense of the notes. Otherwise I would be better off writing
a textbook and even be able to make some money out of it.
I have also added a new table of contacts listing the various national and
international groups acting as a forum for people with common interests
in veterinary epidemiology. I would like to ask people to contribute addresses
etc..
In the software section I have updated a couple of references and added
a link to Win Episcope (very useful as the epidemiologist's Swiss army knife)
by Ignacio de Blas, Camelo Ortega, Klaas Frankena and Jos Noordhuizen as
well as made the software HerdAcc by David Jordan (great for solving these
herd sensitivity/specificity mysteries) available for download. If there
is anything else, please let me know !!!!!
The PC which has been serving the web site for the first couple of months
has been sick for two weeks now (after we upgraded it to a 2 Gb hard disk)
and therefore my office PC is acting as the web server at the moment (I
wonder if anybody noticed). People should not notice any difference and
the address is still the same. The connection might be a bit slow when you
catch me manipulating data, but that is usually when most other people in
the world are at sleep or at home (except for the Kiwis and Wallabies, of
course).
Dr. Dirk Pfeiffer; Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology; Course Director Master
of Veterinary Studies (Epidemiology); Department of Veterinary Clinical
Sciences,;Massey University; Palmerston North, NEW ZEALAND
Funds Awarded for Study of International Classification
of Diseases
From: Leigh Star <s-star1@UIUC.EDU>
Geof Bowker and I are happy to announce that we have been awarded a grant
of $181,463 by the NSF for support of a research project on the history
and sociology of classification entitled:
"The Quiet Politics of Voice: A Comparative Study of Classification
and Information Infrastructure."
A quick description from the project summary: "Very large information
systems embody values which are often invisible, embedded in layers of infrastructure.
The 'quiet politics' of information interchange protocols or how insurance
data are encoded often have substantial impact on people's lives, yet are
often inaccessible to public debate...We propose to examine the design,
development and use of two classification systems, the International Classification
of Diseases (ICD) and the Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC)....For
comparative purposes and to increase the depth of the analysis, we will
also look at similar developments in library and racial classification schemes.
Our analytic focus is on understanding how large-scale information infrastructures
(both computerized and non-computerized) embed values and politics in a
variety of settings. We are especially interested in routine, even boring
aspects of information encoding, such as the degree of precision awarded
to codes for particuar conditions or procedures...important public and scientific
conseuences may come from less obvious classification decisions, and encode
moral order in subtle fashion."
Susan Leigh Star
Graduate School of Library and Information Science; University of Illinois;
123 LIS Building; 501 East Daniel St.; Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: (217) 244-3280; FAX: (217) 244-3302; email: s-star1@uiuc.edu
MEETINGS AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
See the informatics section of NetVet for a more complete and current list
of informatics-related activities at <http://netvet.wustl.edu/info.htm>
January 18-22, 1997
Classification and Concepts Conference; Jacksonville, FL
The International Medical Informatics Association is sponsoring its Fourth
International Conference on Medical Concept Representation in Jacksonville
Florida, during January, 1997. Following the traditions of Ottowa 1984,
Geneva 1988, and Vevey 1994, the conference will represent the state of
the art thinking and developments in healthcare classification, terminology
models, cognitive evaluations of interfaces and term navigation, and medical
language processing. The conference will be held at the Ponte Vedra Inn
& Club, along the Atlantic coast of Florida just below Jacksonville.
It will run Sunday, January 18, 1997 through Wednesday, January 22. Meeting
details and registration are available at:
http://www.cmt.org/WG6/conf
Speakers are by invitation only. Participating observers are strictly limited
to 75, on a first come, first serve basis.
We expect the final proceedings to be published as either a monograph (as
in '84 and '88) or a special journal issue ('94). The program committee
is: Christopher G. Chute, USA, Chair; Robert Baud, Switzerland, for Natural
Language Processing; James Cimino, USA, for Clinical Classifications; Vimla
Patel, Canada, for Cognitive Evaluation; and Alan Rector, UK, for Terminology
Models. Professor J. R. Scherrer, Geneva, will keynote the conference. Dr.
Edward Sondik, new director of the National Center for Health Statistics
in Washington, has been invited to deliver the dinner address.
The conference secretariat is:
Karen Elias; Department of Health Sciences Res.; 200 First Street, HA 675;
Mayo Foundation; Rochester, MN 55905, USA
Tel: 507 284 5541; Fax: +1 507 284 1516; Email: elias@mayo.edu
http://www.cmt.org/WG6/conf
April 23-25, 1997
1997 Computers in Healthcare Education Symposium; Philadelphia, PA
(See the July-August, 1996 AVI Newsletter for details)
September 10-14, 1997
Veterinary Informatics at the 5th World Equine Veterinary
Association; Padova, Italy
(See the July-August, 1996 AVI Newsletter for details)
ROADMAP96 - The Roadmap96 Workshop
From: Patrick Douglas Crispen <crispen@campus.mci.net>
ROADMAP96 on LISTSERV@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET
(*Please pay particular attention to the three "notes" at the
bottom of this announcement*)
ROADMAP96 is a 27-lesson, Internet training workshop designed to teach new
"Net travelers" how to travel around the rapidly expanding (and
often-times confusing) "Information Superhighway" without getting
lost. The original Roadmap workshop, which debuted in the Fall of 1994,
rapidly became the most popular on-line Internet training workshop in history.
ROADMAP96 is a completely revised and updated version of the original Roadmap
workshop. ROADMAP96's lessons are primarily written for people with accounts
on command-line systems (like UNIX, VAX, and VM), but EVERYONE is welcome
to participate in the workshop!
The entire ROADMAP96 workshop will take place on the ROADMAP96 list (ROADMAP96
is a distribution list, not a discussion list). ROADMAP96 covers: E-mail;
LISTSERVs, Majordomo, Listproc, and other e-mail distribution systems; Usenet;
FTP; Archie; Gopher; Veronica; Address Searches; the Web; and many other
topics. Since a number of ROADMAP96's participants only have e-mail access
to the Internet, the ROADMAP96 workshop lessons will also teach you how
to access many of the Internet's tools (FTP, Archie, Gopher, etc.) through
e-mail!
Thanks to the kind folks at the Internet Network Information Center (the
InterNIC), ROADMAP96 now has a permanent home ... and new ROADMAP96 workshop
start every two weeks! All you have to do to participate in one of the free
Roadmap96 workshop sessions is subscribe to the ROADMAP96 e-mail distribution
list!
To be a part of the next ROADMAP96 workshop session -- new sessions start
every two weeks -- just send an e-mail letter to
LISTSERV@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET
with the command
SUBSCRIBE ROADMAP96 YOURFIRSTNAME YOURLASTNAME
in the body of your e-mail letter, replacing YOURFIRSTNAME and YOURLASTNAME
with your first and last names.
Owner: Patrick Douglas Crispen crispen@campus.mci.net
NOTES:
1) I am *still* working on a Web workshop (called "Atlas") that
I hope to introduce this Fall. I just want y'all to be aware that Roadmap96
is not "Atlas."
2) You *must* use the command
SUBSCRIBE ROADMAP96 YOURFIRSTNAME YOURLASTNAME
to be able to subscribe to ROADMAP96. If you leave the "96" off
of "ROADMAP96" you will receive a letter from the LISTSERV telling
you that "you are not allowed to subscribe." REMEMBER: SUBSCRIBE
TO "ROADMAP96" *NOT* TO "ROADMAP!"
3) HTML, ZIP, and SEA versions of all of the Roadmap96 lessons will *eventually*
be available on the Roadmap homepage at <http://www.ua.edu/~crispen/roadmap.html>.
SUGGESTED READING
Cole, R. 1996. Digital dexterity. Computer aids in every corner of veterinary
practice. Veterinary Forum (September):64-71.
(Editor's note: This article gives a nice overview of present and future
applications of computers and information technology in practice. It also
includes "action scenes" from Dr. Robert Featherston's Veterinary
Medical Center in Tulsa, OK.).
Hafner, K and Lyon, M. 1996. Where Wizards Stay Up Late
The New York Times praises the new book by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon
("Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet") for
"rescuing from oblivion the collection of geeks and nerds, bureaucrats
and geniuses, who changed everyday life for millions of people all across
the planet." The book is published by Simon & Schuster, and an
excerpt appears in the current issue of Educom Review. (New York Times 21
Aug 96 B2)