Web-based sharing of electrocardiogram: a framework for information publishing.

Network-based data sharing is a current trend in medicine and healthcare. The search and retrieval architecture (SRA) we previously proposed for web-based sharing of electrocardiogram (ECG) facilitates the search and retrieval of ECG across hospitals via the Internet. The SRA has a triangle-like configuration including an ECG metadata registry, an ECG provider and an ECG querist. In this paper, we present a framework for ECG information publishing of an ECG provider. We also introduce a prototype of this framework, which was developed for an experimental scenario for assessment test based on MFER, an IEEE standard proposed from Japan. The assessment shows that the prototype of the framework can effectively publish the ECGs in a group of emulated MFER-conformant electrocardiographs, and the published ECGs can be successfully discovered and retrieved via the Internet.