Investigating The Development Tendency Of Academy And Scientific Research Of The Colleges Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Using Information Technology

Background: Informatics is a new subject that focuses on the properties and the methods of information aiming to enlarging the function of information, with information as the main subject and with computer technology as the main study tools. Informatics grows from the crossing of such subject categories as information theory, control theory, computer science, bionics, system engineering and artificial intelligence. The literatures of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) record the theories and clinical experiences of TCM for thousands of years, which show the process of TCM from birth to development, and to perfect. Informatics of TCM plays an important role in the inheritance and innovation of TCM. The database technology makes the collation, analysis, storage and retrieval much easier. A lot of databases are founded, for instance, The Database of Ancient Book of TCM founded by Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Capital University of Medical Science and Guangdong Institute of Medical Information. At present the number of TCM literatures increased in an exploding tendency. Databases become necessary for collecting information from all the literatures.Objective: This study aims to establish a database entitled National Natural Science Foundation-funded Literature System of Traditional Chinese Medicine of China, through using such information technology as database technology, computer technology and network technology, with National Natural Science Foundation-funded literatures of TCM as subject. This study also aims to investigate the development status and tendency of TCM in China.Methods: First, The National Natural Science Foundation-funded literatures of TCM were collected from the databases of CBM disc, CNKI database, Wanfang database and MEDLINES. Second, National Natural Science Foundation-funded Literature System of Traditional Chinese Medicine of China was established using the software such as Windows XP,SQL Server 2005,Visual Studio 2005 and C# language. Third, based on this literature system, the literature distributions for time, journal and college were analyzed. Then the statistical software SPSS 13.0 for windows was used to analyze the property of TCM literatures. The TCM literatures of Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and Yunnan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine were analyzed.Results: The National Natural Science Foundation-funded literatures of TCM of China show an increasing trend. There are more than 1000 journals, while in which most journals focus on traditional Chinese drugs. The TCM literatures of Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and Yunnan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine also show an increasing trend, with different property.Discussion: National Natural Science Foundation-funded Literature System of Traditional Chinese Medicine of China can be used to complete lots of jobs, for instance, analysis of the difference between colleges of TCM in publishing National Natural Science Foundation-funded literatures; analysis of the first responsible persons of the projects; analysis the literatures distribution of region and subject category. The results suggest that database technology could be widely used for TCM literatures, and that establishing modern databases for TCM literatures shows the combination of modern information technology and TCM literatures. The databases of TCM literatures could play a role in the development of TCM.