An information architecture for physiological models, clients and databases

Proposes an information system to support complex physiological information models. The system architecture requires three essential parts: a networked client that generates a request for information; a computation server that performs the calculation; and a model database that provides detailed parameters to the computation server to facilitate solution. The model database is organized as an object-oriented hierarchy following the design used to store medical images and their metadata in accordance with the international DICOM standard for medical images. A fourth critical component is also defined: a case database that archives the input data that has been used by the client to define the case to be computed, and archives the output from the solution. This system is applied to a complex contemporary model of the electrophysiology of cardiac myocyte cells.