From Clinical Practice Guidelines to Computer-interpretable Guidelines

Abstract

Developing high-quality guidelines requires a skilled team of people and sufficient budget. The guidelines should give personalized advice. Computer-interpretable guidelines (CIGs) that have access to the patient's EPR are able to give personal advice. Because of the costs, sharing of CIGs is a critical requirement for guideline development, dissemination, and implementation. Until now this is hardly possible, because of the many models in use. However, some solutions have been proposed. For instance, a standardized terminology should be imposed so that the terms in guidelines can be matched with terms in an EPR. Also, a dissemination model for easy updating of guidelines should be established. The recommendations should be based on evidence instead of on consensus. To test the quality of the guideline, appraisal instruments should be used to assess the guideline as a whole, as well as checking the quality of the recommendations individually. Only in this way optimal guideline advice can be given on an individual basis at a reasonable cost.

A guide to the translation of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) strategy into improved care

“…Joint international efforts, for example through the Guidelines International Network, provide a forum for guideline implementers to exchange ideas on effective methods for overcoming barriers to knowledge translation, and access tools to produce better and more ''translatable'' guidelines. It is probable that new means of communication, such as computerbased programmes or exchanges through the Internet, will be used [72].…”

Methods in Year 50: Preserving the Past and Preparing for the Future

“…As the journal's major focus is on publications in medical informatics, we can mainly find publications in traditional areas of this discipline such as electronic patient records [18] and health information systems (HIS); those addressing a variety of questions on HIS architectures [19]; HIS processes [20]; HIS standards [21]; or evaluation of HIS [22]. There were also publications in other traditional areas of medical informatics such as knowledgebased decision support [23] or biomedical signal [24] and image [25] processing. Other publications dealt with ontologies [26] or with the analysis [27] and retrieval [28] of certain documents from medicine and health care.…”

A Constraint Logic Programming Approach to Identifying Inconsistencies in Clinical Practice Guidelines for Patients with Comorbidity

“…The use of CPGs at the point of care is limited and a number of barriers have been identified [2,3]. One particular barrier is that the CPG seldom allows for customization to a patient-specific situation, especially in light of comorbidity.…”