AIDA--experiences in compensating the mutual weaknesses of knowledge-based and object-oriented development in a complex dental planning domain.
OBJECTIVE
Dentistry is a discipline with two properties that pose a serious challenge to knowledge based decision support: (1) It has to integrate six subdisciplines ranging from conservative measures to invasive disciplines, such as implantology; (2) A plan may have to cover a complex treatment often lasting one year or more. It is the aim of the AIDA-project to set up a planning strategy that is suited to incorporate all dental peculiarities in one methodology.


METHODS
Generic tasks, that can be assigned to individual persons involved in dental treatment, have been designed with the help of KADS. They have been integrated into a planning super-structure for the planning of all dental solution alternatives, that can principally be applied on the basis of the given patient status.


RESULTS
Besides an evaluation of the implemented planning system itself, it has been evaluated how well the development is supported by (1) knowledge-engineering methods and (2) object-oriented methods.


CONCLUSIONS
Common knowledge-based tools are not powerful enough for the planning of complex dental constructions. Therefore, a solution combining object-oriented and knowledge-based methods is proposed.
Finkeissen
E
E
Institute for Medical Biometry and Informatics, Department of Medical Informatics, University of Heidelberg, Germany. Ekkehard_Finkeissen@med.uni-heidelberg.de
Weber
R
R
Hassfeld
S
S
Koke
U
U
Wetter
T
T
D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D003813:Dentistry; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010347:Patient Care Planning; D012985:Software Design