Empirical analysis of knowledge bases to support structured output in the Arden syntax.
BACKGROUND
Structured output has been suggested for the Arden Syntax to facilitate interoperability.


OBJECTIVE
Tabulate the components of WRITE statements in a corpus of medical logic modules (MLMs)in order to validate requiring structured output.


METHODS
WRITE statements were tabulated in 258 MLMs from 2 organizations.


RESULTS
In a total of 351 WRITE statements, email destinations (226) predominated, and 39 orders and 40 coded output elements also were tabulated. Free-text strings predominated as the message data.


CONCLUSIONS
Arden WRITE statements contain considerable potentially structured data now included as free text. A future, normative structured WRITE statement must address a variety of data types and destinations.
Center for Biomedical Informatics & Department of Medicine, Charles Drew University, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Robert A
RA
Jenders
D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical / Q000592:standards*; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000592:standards*; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000592:standards*; D008498:Medical Record Linkage / Q000592:standards; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014481:United States; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled