INDEXING GUIDELINES - APPLICATIONS IN USE OF PULMONARY-ARTERY CATHETERS AND PRESSURE ULCER PREVENTION

In a busy clinical environment, access to knowledge must be rapid and specific to the clinical query at hand. This requires indices which su pport easy navigation within a knowledge source. We have developed a c omputer-based tool for trouble-shooting pulmonary artery waveforms usi ng a graphical index. Preliminary results of domain knowledge tests fo r a group of clinicians exposed to the system (N = 33) show a mean imp rovement on a 30-point test of 5.33 (p<0.001) compared to a control gr oup (N = 19) improvement of 0.47 (p = 0.61). Survey of the experimenta l group (N = 25) showed 84% (p = 0.001) found the system easy to use. We discuss lessons learned in indexing this domain area to computer-ba sed indexing of guidelines for pressure ulcer prevention.