Database capture of echocardiographic reports

A database is designed and implemented for storing and managing echocardiographic reports in a relationship database environment. The database uses a frame data structure to represent patient findings. A discourse based methodology for developing frames and dictionaries is developed and a hierarchical dictionary for echocardiography is created. A database capture application for automatically creating database records from free text echocardiographic reports is designed and implemented in a modular way that allows integration of all knowledge bases in the database system. An accuracy rate of approximately 90% is achieved. Accuracy is measured as a ratio of the number of good records to the ideal total number of records from the processed reports. The implications of the database design on clinical use are explored. Important issues in knowledge representation and text understanding are discussed throughout.