Temporal Information Systems in Medicine introduces the engineering of information systems for medically-related problems and applications. The chapters are organized into four parts; fundamentals, temporal reasoning & maintenance in medicine, time in clinical tasks, and the display of time-oriented clinical information. The chapters are self-contained with pointers to other relevant chapters or sections in this book when necessary. Time is of central importance and is a key component of the engineering process for information systems. This book is designed as a secondary text or reference book for upper -undergraduate level students and graduate level students concentrating on computer science, biomedicine and engineering. Industry professionals and researchers working in health care management, information systems in medicine, medical informatics, database management and AI will also find this book a valuable asset.
Writing a collective volume on information systems in medicine from the temporal perspective has been a big challenge to us for a number of reasons. One reason was the growing interest in time-oriented aspects coming from di erent research communities, inspired by di erent research issues and problems. A second reason that is not unrelated to the first was the diverse and multidisciplinary nature of the various aspects of temporal information systems in medicine. A third reason was to attempt to strike a balance between the theoretical and methodological issues on one hand, and the challenging aspects of developing applications that can deal with reallife, time-oriented medical problems, on the other hand. A final reason was that such a book, as we envisioned it, simply did not exist. Given the growing work in the field and its significance, we considered the presence of such a book a necessity for giving a uniform integration, under a common umbrella, of the areas of research impinging on temporal information systems in medicine; that is we felt that the absence of such a book was a hindrance to someone wishing to get an overall acquaintance or to be updated on the various matters that arise in this interdisciplinary field.
