title: A temporal-abstraction mediator for protocol-based decision-support systems.
abstract: The inability of many clinical decision-support applications to integrate with existing databases limits the wide-scale deployment of such systems. To overcome this obstacle, we have designed a data-interpretation module that can be embedded in a general architecture for protocol-based reasoning and that can support the fundamental task of detecting temporal abstractions. We have developed this software module by coupling two existing systems--RESUME and Chronus--that provide complementary temporal-abstraction techniques at the application and the database levels, respectively. Their encapsulation into a single module thus can resolve the temporal queries of protocol planners with the domain-specific knowledge needed for the temporal-abstraction task and with primary time-stamped data stored in autonomous clinical databases. We show that other computer methods for the detection of temporal abstractions do not scale up to the data- and knowledge-intensive environments of protocol-based decision-support systems.
authors.affiliation: Section on Medical Informatics, Stanford University School of Medicine, California 94305-5479.
authors.forename: A K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Das
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shahar
authors.forename: S W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Tu
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Musen
mesh_terms: D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003628:Database Management Systems; D003658:Decision Making, Computer-Assisted; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D007256:Information Systems; D011381:Programming Languages; D012984:Software; D018511:Systems Integration; D013997:Time Factors