What are the applications of computers in medicine?

Repost: the application of computers in medicine with the rapid development of electronic computer technology, especially the popularity of micro-computers, computer technology has penetrated into the medical and its management of various fields, can be used to obtain, storage, transmission, processing and utilization of medicine and medical management of various information. After more than 30 years of practice and development, medical information processing science has become an emerging, medical and computer technology combined with the fringe disciplines, the development of medicine plays an important role. Components of electronic computers Computers are divided into two major systems: hardware and software. The hardware system refers to the various specific electronic and mechanical devices of the computer; while the software system refers to the various types of computer languages and programs. The hardware part of the computer includes the central processor, internal memory, external memory, interface circuits, input devices and output devices. Connected by buses, they form a complete computer hardware system. People enter commands, data, etc. through the input device (commonly used is the keyboard), and can use the internal and external memory to give storage, but also can order the central processor to the data for the required arithmetic processing, and finally the results can be output through the output device (commonly used are monitors and printers) output. The computer software part includes system software and application software two categories. Software has the difference between language and program. Computer language is available for people to write programs with a certain structure of the computer can recognize the various commands (and instructions). The so-called "high-level language" is a computer language. A program is a series of statements written in a computer language in a certain order, and the computer will execute the statements one after another in order to fulfill certain requirements of people. System software includes computer language, operating system (a set of programs through which people can easily operate the computer), database management system (a computer data management technology), etc.; application software refers to the program written by people for a particular requirement. System software from the computer manufacturer with the computer hardware provided to the user, while the application software needs to be developed by the user according to their own work needs (this is the so-called "secondary development"), or from the software company to buy. Computer applications in medicine Computer applications in the field of medicine **** the following 12 aspects: computer-aided diagnosis and decision-making system (CAD& CMD) can help doctors to shorten the diagnostic time; to avoid omissions; to reduce the intensity of labor; to provide other experts to diagnose and treat the views of the diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible, proposed treatment plan. The process of diagnosis and treatment is that the doctor collects the patient's information (symptoms, signs, various test results, medical history, including family history, as well as the effect of treatment, etc.), and on this basis, combined with his own medical knowledge and clinical experience, carries out the synthesis, analysis, judgment, and make a conclusion. Computer-aided diagnostic system is through the combination of doctors and computer workers, the use of fuzzy mathematics, probability statistics and artificial intelligence technology, the establishment of mathematical models on the computer, the patient's information processing, diagnostic advice and treatment options. Such an information processing process is faster, more comprehensive in its considerations and more rigorous in its logical judgments. The auxiliary diagnosis and treatment system prepared by using artificial intelligence technology is generally called "medical expert system". Artificial intelligence is at the forefront of contemporary computer applications. A medical expert system simulates the reasoning process of a doctor's diagnosis and treatment based on the knowledge provided by the doctor, and provides assistance in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and other conditions. The core of a medical expert system consists of a knowledge base and a reasoning machine. The knowledge base consists of book knowledge and the specific experience of individual doctors, and the knowledge is represented in the form of rules, networks, frameworks, etc., and stored in the computer. The reasoning machine is a control mechanism that, based on the patient's information, decides what knowledge in the knowledge base is to be used and what reasoning strategy is to be used to reason and draw conclusions. Because there is a lot of uncertainty in the diagnosis and treatment, artificial intelligence technology can better solve this imprecise reasoning problem, so that the medical expert system is closer to the thought process of the doctor's diagnosis and treatment, and obtain better conclusions. Some expert systems also have self-learning function, can be in the process of diagnosis and treatment of diseases and then obtain knowledge, and constantly improve their diagnosis and treatment level. A good example of this type of system is the MYCIN system of Stanford University, which recognizes the types of bacteria that cause diseases and proposes appropriate antibacterial drugs. A similar system in China is the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Expert System, or "TCM Expert Consultation System". Hospital Information System (HIS) is used to collect, process, analyze, store and transmit medical information and hospital management information. A complete hospital information system can accomplish the following tasks: patient registration, appointment booking, medical record management, ward management, clinical monitoring, dietary management, hospital administration, health check registration, pharmacy and pharmacy management, patient checkout and discharge, medical assisted diagnosis and decision making, medical library retrieval, education and training, consultation and transfer, statistical analysis, laboratory automation and interface. Some of the more famous of these systems are DHCP at the U.S. Demobilized Veterans Hospital and COSTAR at Massachusetts General Hospital, which was developed in the MUMPS language. Since 1970, China has developed a number of hospital information systems, and unified planning and development of hospital statistics, medical records, personnel, equipment, drugs, financial management software packages. Bio-medical Statistics and Epidemiological Survey Software Packages In clinical research, experimental research and epidemiological survey research, a large amount of information needs to be processed. The application of computers can accurately and quickly calculate and process these data. In order to meet this need, a number of software packages have been developed in various computer languages. The more famous are SAS, SPSS, SYSTAT and China's RDAS and so on. Health administrative management information system (MIS) using computer development of "health administrative management information system", also known as "health management information/decision-making system", according to a large number of statistical data to the health administrative decision-making departments to provide information and decision-making advice. A complete health administrative information system consists of three parts: ① automatic data processing system (ADP), the main function is to collect and organize data, summarized into various types of statistical reports and charts. ② information base, is to enable the unit and its external agencies, as well as various functions within the unit between each other **** enjoy a model of information resources. The sources of information are statutory and non-statutory (one-time surveys), as well as from the computer daily collection of information flow generated by various activities. The main purpose of setting up an information base is to communicate activities and modify staff actions. (iii) Decision consulting models, also known as information decision models, can be used to make feasible or optimized plans based on the necessary information, and to predict the development of a business. Traditional methods (i.e., non-information/decision-making systems) rely mainly on past information, considering the current decision-making, or estimating future developments, it can not produce a more effective and rapid contingency measures, information/decision-making mathematical model, if the establishment of the mathematical model is more reasonable, it is possible to timely by the current activities, pointing out the upcoming deviations, foresee the future, in order to support the management of decision-making response to continuous change. The medical information retrieval system utilizes computer database technology and communication network technology to manage medical books, journals, and various medical materials. By using keywords, etc., the required literature can be found quickly. Computerized information retrieval work can be divided into three parts: ① information citation processing; ② information storage and retrieval; ③ to provide a variety of information services, real-time retrieval can be provided to the user for regular thematic services, as well as the automatic preparation of book-type indexing. The U.S. National Library of Medicine to prepare the "Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System" (MEDLARS) is the more famous international software system, which is a more complete real-time on-line retrieval of network retrieval system. Through the IBM3081 computer system of the museum, it can provide on-line search and fixed-topic search services, and form a worldwide computer search network in 16 countries and regions through the methods of communication network, satellite communication or database tape. Other famous systems such as IBM4361, MEDLARS, etc. have been developed in China. China has developed some thematic medical intelligence data retrieval systems, such as the retrieval system of Chinese medicine literature and canonical books. Pharmacokinetics Software Package Pharmacokinetics uses mathematical models and mathematical methods to quantitatively study the regularity of dynamic changes in the absorption, distribution, transformation and excretion of drugs. The concentration of drugs in human tissues cannot be and is not easy to be measured directly, so samples such as blood and urine are commonly used for measurement, and appropriate mathematical models are used to describe and infer the concentration and movement characteristics of drugs in various parts of the body. The most commonly used mathematical methods in the study of pharmacokinetics are atrial models, physiological models, linear system analysis, statistical moments and stochastic models. The development and application of these new techniques and methods are inseparable from the application of computer technology. A number of software packages dedicated to pharmacokinetics have been developed, among which the more famous is the NONLIN program (a nonlinear least squares program). Disease prediction and forecasting system Disease prevalence in the population of the law, and the environment, society, the population of immunity and other factors, the computer can be based on the information stored in the relevant factors and according to the mathematical model it establishes calculations, to make a population of disease prevalence prediction forecasts for the decision-making department for reference. Holland, Norway and other countries have also established an occupational disease accident information base, so it can effectively control and predict the impact of occupational hazards. China's Shanghai, Liaoning and other places in the health epidemic prevention department, the meteorological factors and bronchitis, some endemic diseases, epidemics (such as encephalitis B, epidemic meningitis, etc.) of the relationship between a large number of analyses and the establishment of mathematical models, with these models in the microcomputer can be successful in the prediction of the forecast of these diseases. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) can help students learn, master medical science and improve problem-solving skills as well as better utilize the medical knowledge base and retrieve medical literature; faculty members can use it to prepare teaching materials and can keep in touch with colleagues and students via e-mail to discuss problems, improve learning and examine learning performance; medical staff can study and supplement according to their respective needs and pace of new medical expertise. At present, in some medical research and teaching units have established a variety of CAI medical courses that can be accessed by remote terminals through the telephone network. The use of computers for medical education is another important way to use computer simulation methods, that is, the use of computer simulation of the human body or experimental animals, to provide students with effective experimental environment and means, so that students can more easily observe the human body or experimental animals, in the conditions of parameter changes in a variety of states, some of which are often difficult to observe in the general conditions of animal experiments. Due to the development of CD-ROM technology, language recognition, touch screen display and other new technologies, teaching computer simulation of cases such as CD-ROMs have been tried and tested successfully, and supplied as a commodity on the market, the use of such CD-ROMs can conveniently display the operating room and other on-site actual pictures and situations, or relevant textbooks and literature for students to learn. Optimal radiation therapy planning software The application of computers in radiotherapy is mainly to calculate the dose distribution and formulate radiotherapy plans. In the past, manual calculations took a lot of time because of the complexity of the calculation process. Thus, in the case of manual calculation, usually only a few representative points can be selected to calculate the dose value. With the use of computers, it only takes a short time and the error is not more than 5%, so that it is possible to make several calculations for the same patient under different conditions and select an optimal radiation therapy plan from them. The so-called optimal radiation treatment plan is to develop a treatment plan for the patient, including the determination of the irradiation source, the radiation field area, the distance between the radiation source and the body surface, the angle of incidence and the location of the center of the field, etc., and then by the computer according to the performance of the treatment machine and a variety of formulas to calculate the corresponding dose distribution in the image of the color monitor to display. For the same patient, after repeated changes in irradiation conditions, calculation, analysis and comparison, you can derive the most ideal dose distribution, so that the radiation irradiation direction to harm the normal tissue cells at least, the best efficacy of radiotherapy, which is the optimal radiation treatment plan. At the same time, this dose distribution map can be recorded with a plotter and stored in the medical record for use in treatment or long-term preservation. Computerized Medical Image Processing and Image Recognition Many important information in medical research and clinical diagnosis are in the form of images, and the dependence of medicine on image information is very close. Medical images are generally divided into two categories: one is the information over time, one-dimensional image, most of the medical signals belong to this category, such as electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, etc.; the other is the information in the spatial distribution of multi-dimensional images, such as X-ray photographs, tissue slices, cellular stereoscopic images and so on. In the medical field, there are a large number of images need to be processed and identified, in the past are used in an artificial way, the advantage is that experienced doctors can be a comprehensive analysis of clinical medical images, but the analysis is slow, the correct rate varies with the doctor. The characteristics of high speed, high precision and large capacity of computer can make up for the above shortcomings. In particular, there are some medical images, such as the analysis of electroencephalogram, with manual observation, only a small amount of information can be extracted, a large amount of useful information is wasted. The use of computers can make complex calculations and extract many valuable information. In addition, when carrying out tumor census, we often need to watch tens of thousands of tissue sections under the microscope; we often need to do some kind of cell counting in daily laboratory tests or research work. These tasks are both laborious and time-consuming, if the use of computers, will save a lot of manpower and shorten the time. The use of computers to process, identify medical images, in some cases, can do manual work can not be done. Such as cardiovascular imaging, when the manual measurement of volume, derived from the blood pressure volume curve, can only analyze the characteristics of the heart systole and diastole. If computers are utilized, it takes only one second per slice and useful parameters such as instantaneous velocity, acceleration, area and volume can be obtained. In addition, regardless of the above type of work, the computer can also complete another type of work that can not be completed manually that is, image enhancement and recovery. 1970s medical image processing in computerized tomography imaging (CT) outstanding achievements, and magnetic *** vibration imaging, digital subtraction cardiovascular angiography, such as the emergence of new devices, as well as ultrasound, and other medical imaging instruments, and other further improvement, make the People are more interested in the processing of radiological and nuclear medicine images and pattern recognition research. Microscopic images have always played an important role in medical diagnosis and medical research. Computer image processing and analysis methods have been used to detect important features in microscopic images, and people have been able to study cytological images and even histological images semi-quantitatively and quantitatively with image processing techniques and somatoscopic methods. Computerized three-dimensional motion picture technology has made it possible to quantitatively analyze the dynamic function of the heart. Biochemical indicators, automatic analysis of physiological information and medical equipment intelligence Medical equipment intelligence refers to the application of modern medical instruments and computer technology and its various software combinations, which makes these devices with automatic sampling, automatic analysis, automatic data processing and other functions, and can be real-time control, which is the development of medical instruments in a direction. The application of computers in nursing The application of computers in nursing is mainly divided into three aspects: ① Nursing, including nursing records, nursing examination, patient monitoring, drug management. ② Nurse education, including nursing CAI education, nurse teaching programs and learning achievement records management. ③Nurse management, including nurse service plan scheduling, human resource management, nurse work quality inspection or evaluation.