EVALUATION OF A KNOWLEDGE-BASED DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR VENTILATOR THERAPY MANAGEMENT

Evaluation of knowledge-based systems differs from that of conventiona l systems in terms of verification and validation techniques. Furtherm ore, evaluating medical decision-support systems is difficult because the field is thus far comparatively unexplored. This paper presents an evaluation of a medical knowledge-based system called VentEx that sup ports decision-making in the management of ventilator therapy. Real pa tient data from 1300 hours of patient care involving 12 patients with 6 diagnoses are used to validate the knowledge base. The results range from 4.5% to 15.6% disagreement between the setting recommendations p roduced by VentEx and a gold standard, and 22.2% disagreement for reco mmendations for weaning. A comparison between the standard and two phy sicians showed that VentEx produced advice of the same quality as the physicians.