An architecture for streamlining the implementation of biomedical text/image databases on the Web

To date the implementation of biomedical text/images databases on the Web has been hindered by the lack of software flexibility to enable new datasets to be "rolled in " to existing database systems without extensive programming modifications. An R&D division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is creating a new database system, the multimedia database tool (MDT), built on an architecture that moves the required customization for a particular dataset from the programmer to the database administrator level, thereby reducing potentially high labor costs. The first database application to be supported will be uterine cervix data from the National Cancer Institute, including 100,000 digitized images, and NHANES II and III databases now hosted by the NLM Web-based medical information retrieval system (WebMIRS).