A Prototype of a Decision Support System for Equine Cardiovascular Diseases Diagnosis and Management

Abstract

Proper diagnosis and management of equine cardiac diseases require a broad experience and a specialization in the field, but acquisition of specific knowledge is difficult, due, among other reasons, to the limited literature in this field. Therefore, we have designed, developed, and implemented (on a computer algebra system) a Decision Support System (DSS) for equine cardiovascular diseases diagnosis and management based on clinical practise. At this step it is appropriate for equine science teaching, but this work paves the way for a clinical decision support system that facilitated equine clinicians the management of horses with cardiac diseases, allowing improving health care in this species. The latter would require extensive testing prior to its use. The novelty of this work relies on the organization of the equine cardiology workflow in mathematical logic form, that allowed designing, develop and implement a DSS in this new field. An innovation of this work is the part of the DSS devoted to data completion (motivated by the possible lack of specialization of the users—the veterinarians).

Expanding access to veterinary clinical decision support in resource-limited settings: a scoping review of clinical decision support tools in medicine and antimicrobial stewardship

“…In contrast to human health, CDS tools are less widespread in veterinary settings, although several CDS tools have been reported in the literature for companion animals ( 29 ), cattle ( 30 ), pigs ( 31 ), poultry ( 32 ), horses ( 33 ), and aquaculture ( 34 , 35 ). Veterinary CDS tools appear to be primarily developed for sophisticated livestock farming enterprises or for veterinary hospitals equipped with advanced technologies, two scenarios mostly found in high-income countries.…”