Faculty Publications

An Object-Oriented Class Library For Medical Software Development

Document Type

Article

Keywords

medical record, medical software, object orientation, programming tools

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Methods of Information in Medicine

Volume

35

Issue

4-5

First Page

343

Last Page

347

Abstract

The objective of this research is the development of a Medical Object Library (MOL) consisting of reusable, inheritable, portable, extendable C++ classes that facilitate rapid development of medical software at reduced cost and increased functionality. The result of this research is a library of class objects that range in function from string and hierarchical file handling entities to high level, procedural agents that perform increasingly complex, integrated tasks. A system built upon these classes is compatible with any other system similarly constructed with respect to data definitions, semantics, data organization and storage. As new objects are built, they can be added to the class library for subsequent use. The MOL is a toolkit of software objects intended to support a common file access methodology, a unified medical record structure, consistent message processing, standard graphical display facilities and uniform data collection procedures. This work emphasizes the relationship that potentially exists between the structure of a hierarchical medical record and procedural language components by means of a hierarchical class library and tree structured file access facility. In doing so, it attempts to establish interest in and demonstrate the practicality of the hierarchical medical record model in the modern context of object oriented programming.

Department

Department of Computer Science

Original Publication Date

1-1-1996

DOI of published version

10.1055/s-0038-1634676

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