A Domain-Independent Semantically Validated Authoring Tool for Formalizing Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Abstract

Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are promoted as a powerful tool for standardization of the medical care quality and improvement of patients' outcomes. However, CPGs need to be formalized in a computer interpretable format (i.e. as Computer Interpretable Guidelines or CIGs) for their implementation within Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS). But, maintaining the reliability of these guidelines when deploying them in different clinical settings is still a challenge. On the one hand, the complexity of the medical language complicates the adoption of the guidelines in different clinical institutions. On the other hand, the continuous discovery of new evidence needs to be included within CPGs, updating their contents and providing tools for evidence assessment. Furthermore, although nowadays' clinical decision-making tends towards a personalized process, guidelines are designed for a general population. In this paper, we present an Authoring Tool (AT) that allows clinicians to take an active role in the process of CPG formalization. This AT enables them to introduce new clinical knowledge and create personalized CIGs for their local application, which best fits their clinical needs. The proposed system also allows the use of ontologies to facilitate the standardization and interoperability of the created guidelines. Finally, the content included in the CIGs can be evaluated using standard systems for grading clinical evidence.