Validating a decision support system for anti-epileptic drug treatment. Part I: initiating anti-epileptic drug treatment.
In this contribution the validation of a prototype decision support system that implements a model of expertise for initiating anti-epileptic drug treatment is described. Since domain experts were of the opinion that prescribing was a rather straightforward process we used only one expert neurologist for knowledge elicitation. To determine the correctness of the system we intended to compare the contents of the system's prescriptions with the majority decision of three neurologists. Because of a large variation in prescribing a majority decision could not be obtained in many cases. Even a Delphi procedure did not yield a majority decision in a large number of cases. Therefore a consensus meeting was organised to discuss cases where discrepancies remained. In the process the participating neurologists formulated prescription guidelines. These guidelines were used as a reference to determine the correctness of the prescriptions of both the system and of the neurologists. The acceptability of all prescriptions for each case was rated by the two neurologists who did not write a prescription for that case. From both comparisons it could be concluded that the system was at least as good in prescribing as individual neurologists.
Smeets
R
R
Department of Medical Informatics, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands. raymond.smeets@mi.unimaas.nl
Talmon
J
J
Meinardi
H
H
Hasman
A
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D003697:Delphi Technique; D011307:Drug Prescriptions; D004828:Epilepsies, Partial / Q000188:drug therapy; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000188:drug therapy*; D004829:Epilepsy, Generalized / Q000188:drug therapy; D005103:Expert Systems; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009462:Neurology; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D012986:Software Validation
D000927:Anticonvulsants