Development of a Gestational Diabetes Computer Interpretable Guideline using Semantic Web Technologies

Abstract

The benefits of following Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) in the daily practice of medicine have been widely studied, being a powerful method for standardization and improvement of medical care quality. However, applying these guidelines to promote evidence-based and up-to-date clinical practice is a known challenge due to the lack of digitalization of clinical guidelines. In order to overcome this issue, the use of Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) has been promoted in clinical centres. Nevertheless, CPGs must be formalized in a computer interpretable way to be implemented within CDSS. Moreover, these systems are usually developed and implemented using local setups, and hence local terminologies, which causes lack of semantic interoperability. In this context, the implementation of Semantic Web Technologies (SWTs) to formalize the concepts used in guidelines promotes the interoperability and standardization of those systems. In this paper, an architecture that allows the formalization of CPGs into Computer Interpretable Guidelines (CIGs) supported by an ontology in the gestational diabetes domain is presented. This CIG has been implemented within a CDSS and a mobile application has been developed for guiding patients based on up-to-date evidence based clinical guidelines.