Elion, Jonathan

Jonathan Elion

Clinical Associate Professor Emeritus of Medicine

Overview

I have done a lot of work in digital imaging, image processing and image storage/retrieval/display for medicine and cardiology. I am currently working in coding standards for cardiovascular information, thereby enabling and facilitating information sharing with reproducible definitions. I am actively involved in the international effort for Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise, developing technical frameworks system interoperability in hospital information systems. I am also interested in applications of the semantic web for creating adaptable clinical pathways and workflow.

Brown Affiliations

Medicine

Research Areas

clinical pathways | clinical workflow | IHE | Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise | Semantic Web

Research

Research Overview

I help to study methods of writing and implementing computer-based Clinical Pathways for guiding medical care. These are flowcharts for assessing and treating illnesses. Formalized guidelines allow for expert care to be made widely available, while allowing for the study of alternate healthcare delivery strategies.

I am also active in the international effort known as Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise ("IHE"), standardizing the way hospital computer systems exchange information.

Research Statement

I help to study methods of writing and implementing computer-based "Clinical Pathways" for guiding medical care. These are flowcharts for assessing and treating illnesses. By formalizing the care guidelines, world-class expertise care can be made widely available to doctors. By studying alternative healthcare delivery processes (as defined by the guidelines), it is possible to derive improved healthcare delivery strategies.

The approach used is relatively unique in the area of Clincical Pathways, in that we are applying technology from the Semantic Web and using Expert Systems for the analysis. This permits several very key advantages:
- A Clinical Pathways for a single disorder can be created by assimilating smaller pieces from multiple sources. This is helpful when it is necessary to take local policies and resources into account. This can be used, for example, to create a single pathway that takes into account local, state, and national access policies
- Clinical Pathways from multiple medical disorders can be combined to match the patient's presentation. For example, a patient with a myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure can be assessed and treated with a single clinical pathway that is created by combining the pathways of each underlying condition.
- There is greater flexibility to adapt to unexpected deviations from the standard pathway. A GPS-based navigation system is a good analogy to understand this capability. If your driving deviates from the route that the GPS system initially recommended, most systems can recover and compute a new route. Semantic web technology brings this adaptability to Clinical Pathways; even if there is a significant deviation from the initial recommended pathway, new pathways can continually be derived and modified.

I am also active in the international effort known as Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise ("IHE"), standardizing the way hospital computer systems exchange information. This effort was initially begun by the Radiology Society of North American (RSNA), joined by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The American College of Cardiology has joined the effort in the last several years. Profiles that describe methods for interoperability have been created, using or extending existing standards.

Funded Research

1990-1991 American Heart Association, Rhode Island Affiliate: "Computer Identification of
Arteriographic Structures" ($20,000).

1992-1994 Rhode Island Heart Association: "Computer Identification of Arteriographic Structures"
($49,995).

1992-1995 General Electric Medical Systems: "Advanced Computer Methods in Digital Cardiac
Imaging" ($397,506).

1994-1995 Hewlett-Packard Medical Systems: "Digital Echocardiography Network" ($116,747).

1995-1996 [Private Industry Grant]: "Medical Image Networking" ($80,000 to The Miriam Hospital)

Background

Education and Training

Year	Degree	Institution
1975	MD	Brown University
1972	BS	Brown University

Honors and Awards

1980: Teaching Award from the 2nd year Medical School class (Introduction to Clinical Medicine), University of Wisconsin

1992: Who's Who Among Rising Young Americans, 1992 edition.

Researchers@Brown