ST-guide: a framework for the implementation of automatic clinical guidelines

ABSTRACT

This paper presents ST-Guide, a state/transition approach to the representation of computer interpretable clinical guidelines for primary and secondary care. Details of the representation language, which is based on finite state machines, and the execution model are presented. We claim that because it is geared towards primary care clinical guidelines, specially for chronic diseases, the representation language is simpler than general guideline representation languages that have been proposed in the literature. Guidelines for Tuberculosis, Hepatitis C, Hypertension, and the treatment of germ cell cancer in children were implemented in ST-guide.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS

Additional Classification:
  J. Computer Applications
  J.3 LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES

Keywords:
clinical guidelines, knowledge representation language