A framework for a distributed, hybrid, multiple-ontology clinical-guideline library, and automated guideline-support tools.
Clinical guidelines are a major tool in improving the quality of medical care. However, most guidelines are in free text, not in a formal, executable format, and are not easily accessible to clinicians at the point of care. We introduce a Web-based, modular, distributed architecture, the Digital Electronic Guideline Library (DeGeL), which facilitates gradual conversion of clinical guidelines from text to a formal representation in chosen target guideline ontology. The architecture supports guideline classification, semantic markup, context-sensitive search, browsing, run-time application, and retrospective quality assessment. The DeGeL hybrid meta-ontology includes elements common to all guideline ontologies, such as semantic classification and domain knowledge; it also includes four content-representation formats: free text, semi-structured text, semi-formal representation, and a formal representation. These formats support increasingly sophisticated computational tasks. The DeGeL tools for support of guideline-based care operate, at some level, on all guideline ontologies. We have demonstrated the feasibility of the architecture and the tools for several guideline ontologies, including Asbru and GEM.
Medical Informatics Research Center, Department of Information Systems Engineering, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel. yshahar@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Yuval
Y
Shahar
Ohad
O
Young
Erez
E
Shalom
Maya
M
Galperin
Alon
A
Mayaffit
Robert
R
Moskovitch
Alon
A
Hessing
D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D003205:Computing Methodologies; D003628:Database Management Systems; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004282:Documentation / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface