Redesign CORBA framework for distributed medical informatics model development

The distributed medical informatics (DMI) is a unique suite of multimedia telemedicine applications developed by our team. The applications support real-time patients' data, image files, audio and video diagnosis annotation exchanges. The DMI enables joint collaboration between radiologists and physicians while they are at distant geographical locations. The DMI environment consists of heterogeneous, autonomous, and legacy resources. The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Java database connectivity (JDBC), and Java language provide the capability to combine the DMI resources into an integrated, interoperable, and scalable system. The underneath technology, including IDL ORB, event service, IIOP JDBC/ODBC, legacy system wrapping and Java implementation are explored. This distributed collaborative CORBA/JDBC based framework will challenge the advanced, medical information management requirements. It also makes the DMI both hardware and software technologically independent. As our research and development extend, we will continue to incorporate the latest advances in computer technology. DMI is not another new tool in telemedicine, but rather a new paradigm for the delivery of health services that requires process reengineering, cultural changes, as well as organisational It is a whole new way of practicing in telemedicine. We believe that the DMI project has long-term, comprehensive solutions for today tomorrow-healthcare needs.