THE ROLE OF WEB AGENTS IN MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

The intelligent agent approach offers the promise of remaking a tradit ional enterprise into a learning organization, one that uses progressi ve information technology and information strategies to study its outc omes prospectively, to avoid repetition of past errors, and to improve its effectiveness continuously. This paper explores whether agent tec hnology can fulfill this promise in health care, both in a general sen se and in terms of knowledge management and performance support. A cas e study is presented to illustrate some lessons learned and the pitfal ls that need to be avoided as the development of agents proceeds.