Semantic Information in Medical Information Systems – from Data and Information to Knowledge: Facing Information Overload

Although we live in the age of multimedia, most information is still only available in text format. This is especially true in medical informatics. Consequently, research in text mining is an essential area of computer science. With the aid of statistic and linguistic procedures, text mining software attempts to dig out (mine) information from plain text. The aim is to transform data into information. However, for the efficient support of end users, facets of computer science alone are insufficient; the next step consists of making the information both usable and useful. Consequently, aspects of cognitive psychology must be taken into account in order to transform information into knowledge and finally wisdom. In this paper we describe some experiences we made with text mining in medicine and present a view of current and future challenges in Research & Development in order to match aspects of both Informatics and Psychology. We are aiming to provide performance support in clinical decision making. Our end users include professionals in the area of medicine and health care. Our goal is improved presentation of information – in order to enable enhanced cognitive information processing, resulting in easier and more rapid building of knowledge.