The medical archival system: An information retrieval system based on distributed parallel processing

摘要

The Medical ARchival System (MARS) is an information retrieval system utilizing distributed parallel processing. It features a modular design, machine independence, and a Boolean query interface, based in a UNIX environment. Developed at the University of Pittsburgh in response to the information needs of a large academic health center, MARS integrates textual data from a wide variety of sources to create a single, comprehensive medical records information system. It currently contains 850,000 medical reports, 2,500,000 medical references, and 500,000,000 indexed words. This paper describes the software design of MARS and its implementation as a practical system for large-scale information management.