The application of ontologies and problem-solving methods for the development of shareable guidelines

Recently, studies have shown the benefits of using clinical guidelines in t he practice of medicine. Computer-based clinical guidelines are increasingl y applied in diverse areas such as policy development, utilization manageme nt, education, conduct of clinical trials, and workflow facilitation. This paper discusses some of the representations suggested in literature, discus ses their weak and strong points, and demonstrates and discusses a new appr oach that extends earlier developed formalisms by combining primitives, ont ologies and the use of problem-solving methods (PSMs), The approach is supp orted by a framework that facilitates the entire guideline authoring proces s. The paper demonstrates this framework and presents examples of guideline s, PSMs and systems that were developed by means of this approach. The over all goal of this approach is to improve the acceptance of shareable guideli nes and decision support systems in daily care by facilitating the guidelin e acquisition and execution phases. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V, All righ ts reserved.