Software Agents Representing Medical Guidelines.

Guidelines are self-contained documents which healthcare professionals reference to obtain specific disease or medical condition knowledge for a particular population cohort. They view these documents and apply known facts about their patients to access useful supportive information to aid in developing a diagnosis or manage a condition. Traditional CIG models decompose these guidelines into workflow plans, which are then called using certain motivational trigger conditions controlled by a centralised management engine. Therefore, CIG guidelines are not self-contained documents, which specialise in a particular condition or disease, but are effectively a list of workflow plans, which are called and used when the patient information is available. The software BDI agent offers an alternative approach which more closely matches the modus operandi of narrative based medical guidelines. An agent?s beliefs capture information attributes, plans capture the deliberative and action attributes, and desire captures the motivational attributes of the guideline in a self-contained autonomous software module. This synergy between the narrative guideline and the BDI agent offers an improved solution for computerising medical guidelines when compared to the CIG approach

Sharing health-care records over the Internet

peer-reviewedPresents a novel approach to sharing electronic health-care records that leverages the Internet and the World Wide Web, developed as part of two European Commission-funded projects, Synapses and SynEx. The approach provides an integrated view of patient data from heterogeneous, distributed information systems and presents it to users electronically. Synapses and SynEx illustrate a generic approach in applying Internet technologies for viewing shared records, integrated with existing health computing environments. Prototypes have been validated in a variety of clinical domains and health-care settings

Using XML to network distributed analytical instruments: back to the future?

There has been a paradigm shift in medical informatics standards in recent years from the message-oriented approach to a more distributed systems approach. However, despite all the early promise of distributed applications, they haven\u27t been widely adopted in the health domain for various reasons. As a result, despite an increasing need for a standardised distributed solution for analytical laboratory instruments, many implementers of instrument interfaces are still using proprietary serial interfaces which do not support distribution. The emergence of the eXtended Markup Language (XML) specification in 1998 revived the fortunes of the messaged oriented methodology. This paper presents a partial return to the message based solution. The first section describes the syntax of XML and its impact in various healthcare areas. The next part outlines and compares the different of \u27A standard specification for transferring information between clinical instruments and computer systems (ASTM 1394-91) and its XML-compliant counterpart, while the third part presents one possible use of the XML version in a detailed and practicel medical scenario. A provisional Document Type Definitition (DTD) as well as an example of the resulting ASTM 1394-91/XML will be given in the last section

Framework and architecture for the management of event-condition-action (ECA) rule-based clinical protocols

peer-reviewedComputer-based support for the incorporation of clinical practice guidelines and protocol into daily practice has recently attracted a lot of research interest within the healthcare informatics area. The aim is not only to provide support for the flexible specification and execution of clinical guidelines or protocols but also the dynamic management of these guidelines or protocols. This paper presents a framework and architecture for the management of clinical protocols whose specification and execution models are based on the event-condition-action (ECA) rule paradigm

International Conference on Software Engineering: 22nd: 2000

When the general press refers to `software\u27 in its headlines, then this is often not to relate a success story, but to expand on yet another `software-risk-turned-problem-story\u27. For many people, the term `software\u27 evokes the image of an application package running either on a PC or some similar stand-alone usage. Over 70% of all software, however, are not developed in the traditional software houses as part of the creation of such packages. Much of this software comes in the form of products and services that end-users would not readily associate with software. These can be complex systems with crucial connections made through software, such as telecommunication or banking systems, or the logistics systems of airports; or they can be end-user products with software embedded, ranging from battery management systems in electric shavers, to mobile phones, to engine management and safety systems in cars. E-commerce systems fall into this category too. Yes, there is software that works reliably and as expected, and there are professional approaches to create such products - one can engineer software, in the right environment, with the right peopl

Patient-Centred Laboratory Validation Using Software Agents

Guidelines are self-contained documents which healthcare professionals reference to obtain knowledge about a specific condition or process. They interface with these documents and apply known facts about specific patients to gain useful supportive information to aid in developing a diagnosis or manage a condition. To automate this process a series of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and workflow processes are constructed using the contents of these documents in order to manage the validation flow of a patient sample. These processes decompose the guidelines into workflow plans, which are then called using condition triggers controlled by a centralised management engine. The software BDI agent offers an alternative dynamic which more closely matches the modus operandi of narrative based medical guidelines. An agent?s beliefs capture information attributes, plans capture the deliberative and action attributes, and desire captures the motivational attributes of the guideline in a self-contained autonomous software module. Agents acting on behalf of guidelines which overlap and interweave in similar domains can collaborate and coordinate in a loosely coupled fashion without the need for an all encompassing centralised plan

IEEE International Conference on Information Technology: Ist: Gdansk, Poland, 2008

peer-reviewedBio-repositories are resources for storing biological samples and data to support the discovery of biomarkers, therapeutic targets, and the underlying causes of diseases. The success of this knowledge discovery process depends critically on the quality of samples and their associated data. Biological samples are expensive to collect and store. The samples and their associated data pass through a number of processes, generally in multiple locations, from data collection from the participant, to clinical laboratory analyses, to processing in the research laboratory (proteomics, metablomics, etc.) and ultimately to knowledge discovery. The samples are moved in and out of freezers at several different points in this workflow. The potential for errors in sample identification and linking the corresponding data to its sample is therefore very high. This paper describes a novel method based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to support secure and reliable tracking of both samples and data which minimises the potential for error. The samples are labelled with RFID tags, which allow location-independent recording and updating of sample data as they move along the workflow. The system is linked to a web-based database, which provides the ability to identify and locate individual or group of samples rapidly

Identifying requirements and features for communications systems between older people in care settings

Care settings for older people, such as nursing homes, can have low levels of social interaction, which has been shown in many studies as being crucial to both the mental and physical well-being of older adults. Furthermore, increased social interaction has been shown to have a positive effect on adjustment in institutions for the aged. However, these social connections can be lost due to movement within the care system, with residents regularly relocating for a variety of reasons including cost and medical issues. Eleven health professionals and six residents living in a care home in Ireland were interviewed about their social activities and levels of engagement within the home. Storyboards were then developed and presented to the residents based on these interviews. Findings from the interviews indicate that activity levels among the more cognitively able residents are quite low due to activities catering for the less able residents. Furthermore, a lack of access to information and resources (such as books and newspapers) means that these more able residents reported experiencing long periods of boredom. Technology can potentially allow residents access to such information and resources, enabling them to pursue activities in their personal time which can then also be used as the basis for group discussions. The use of technology could, in addition, allow those residents who had moved out of the home to continue to participate and collaborate in activities with the other residents

Diversity in engineering: tinkering, tailoring, transforming

peer-reviewedDiversity is essential for creativity and innovation, which are at the heart of engineering. Thus engineering can benefit from the richness and varied perspectives and expertise which individuals from different ethnicity, culture and gender can bring to problem-solving. Furthermore promoting diversity in the workforce provides greater access to talent by increasing the pool of qualified and skilled professionals. This chapter focuses on gender diversity as an area which has received considerable attention for many years from both the research community and policy makers. Researchers seek to explore the reasons for the continued under-representation of women in engineering in spite of numerous policies, initiatives and interventions. The subject will be explored through the role of female engineers in academia as it is the education sector which has the most critical influence on recruitment and retention, not just in academia itself but in the public and private sector generally. Using the ?tinkering, tailoring, transforming? model developed by Rees (1995), the chapter will explore the history of women in engineering, highlighting those interventions which appear to be having the greatest positive impact. In spite of the dearth of rigorous evaluation in terms of sustainability and scaleability, there is a growing body of evidence pointing to best practice in this area. This indicates that a significant shift in attitudes and culture is required in order to reach the critical mass of 30% when the process becomes embedded and sustainable