VETO! A Peer-to-Peer Paradigm Based Medical Knowledge Management System

Abstract. Insufficient knowledge of the patient history leads to severe medical, ethical and economical problems [5]. Adverse drug reactions (ADR) or repeated examinations are well-known results. The paper presents a blueprint of applying the VETO! principle to medical knowledge management. This helps to reduce such errors. VETO! is a system that exploits distributed knowledge of the patient record while keeping high medical security standards. The data is uncovered in a Clearinghouse where possible medical risks are identified. If problems are anticipated, a ”Veto!”-message is released to the originating entity. In severe cases additional information can be provided. Unlike other systems, VETO! is an evolutionary P2P system: the resulting quality increases with the number of contributors. It exploits several beneficial characteristics of Peer-to-Peer systems.