TY - JOUR
T1 - A framework for a distributed, hybrid, multiple-ontology clinical-guideline library, and automated guideline-support tools
AU - Shahar, Yuval
AU - Young, Ohad
AU - Shalom, Erez
AU - Galperin, Maya
AU - Mayaffit, Alon
AU - Moskovitch, Robert
AU - Hessing, Alon
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by NIH award No. LM-06806. We thank Samson Tu and Mor Peleg for useful discussions regarding the need for supporting the use of multiple guideline ontologies. Drs. Richard Shiffman and Bryant Karras assisted us in using their GEM ontology. Drs. Mary Goldstein, Susana Martins, Lawrence Basso, Herbert Kaizer, Aneel Advani, and Eitan Lunenfeld, were extremely helpful in assessing the various DeGeL tools.
PY - 2004/1/1
Y1 - 2004/1/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Clinical guidelines
KW - Digital libraries
KW - Knowledge representation
KW - Markup
KW - Ontologies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=5644255712&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jbi.2004.07.001
DO - 10.1016/j.jbi.2004.07.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 15488747
AN - SCOPUS:5644255712
SN - 1532-0464
VL - 37
SP - 325
EP - 344
JO - Journal of Biomedical Informatics
JF - Journal of Biomedical Informatics
IS - 5
ER -