Collaborative development of knowledge-based support systems: a case study.

Abstract

We investigate a user-driven collaborative knowledge engineering and interaction design process. The outcome is a knowledge-based support application tailored to physicians in the local dementia care community. The activity is organized as a part of a collaborative effort between different organizations to develop their local clinical practice. Six local practitioners used the generic decision-support prototype system DMSS-R developed for the dementia domain during a period and participated in evaluations and re-design. Additional two local domain experts and a domain expert external to the local community modeled the content and design of DMSS-R by using the modeling system ACKTUS. Obstacles and success factors occurring when enabling the end-users to design their own tools are detected and interpreted using a proposed framework for improving care through the use of clinical guidelines. The results are discussed.