Towards user-views in an OODBMS for PTCA patients

The authors' project focuses on an object-oriented database system (OODBMS) for follow-up of percutaneous transluminal coronary artery angioplasty (PTCA) patients. Particular attention had previously been paid to the effective integration of data and images, including the management of the different temporal granularities of clinical information. The authors' data model supports now the definition of particular views suitable for a cardiology division. As first step they implemented two different views that can be referred to as "clinical history-view" and "angioplasty result-view", both defined on the single patient. The former gives an overview of the clinical history of a patient; the latter supplies, in a cohesive view, a set of clinical data from follow-up visits allowing the authors to define the degree of success of the patient treatment.