The computer based decision support system (CBDSS) is implemented on the
MEDAN server and accessed via internet using a standard browser
(MS Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, Opera, etc.). The main components
of the implementation can be seen in Figure 1.
Participants connect to the system by calling a HTML login page. The APACHE web server authenticates the participant and grants access to the CBDSS. In subsequent dynamic HTML pages (generated by an integrated PHP module) the participant can register a new patient record, add new data for own patients, and request warnings or diagnostic/therapeutic options. Therefore, the system uses an internal MySQL database to store the patient data while a decision module provides the neural network information. |
In the following, a brief description of the possible user actions and their corresponding functional
implementation is given. Access is always restricted to the participant's own patients. All submitted
data is stored in the internal study database. Furthermore, all data is copied to both the monitoring
and the statistical committee to guarantee transparent trial results.
|