A Hybrid Approach to the Verification of Computer Interpretable Guidelines

Abstract

Abstract. Computer Interpretable Guidelines (CIGs) are assuming a major role in the medical area, in order to enhance the quality of medical assistance by providing physicians with evidence-based recommendations. However, the complexity of CIGs (which may contain hundreds of related clinical activities) demands for a verification process, aimed at assuring that a CIG satisfies several different types of properties (e.g., verification of the CIG correctness with respect to several criteria). Verification is a demanding task, which may be enhanced through the adoption of advanced Artificial Intelligence techniques. In this paper, we propose a general and hybrid approach to address such a task, suggesting that, given the heterogeneous character of the knowledge in CIGs, different forms of verification should be supported, through the adoption of proper (and different) methodologies.

The use of computer-interpretable clinical guidelines to manage care complexities of patients with multimorbid conditions: A review

“…days, delays, or durations such as ‘3 consecutive days’, and clinical task T 1 starts ‘1 hour’ after clinical task T 2 ) constraints between clinical actions, periodic/repeated actions or the temporal constraints which can be the part of the relations between these actions. 32 To avoid the occurrence of any duplications and/or conflicts in care steps, temporal statements need to be checked for their validity when implementing guidelines. 61 , 66 Temporal constraints are particularly important to apply correct prognosis, 126 and multiple medication administrations in a certain time window.…”

“…This approach has also been adopted by Anselma et al. 32 and Bottrighi et al. 69 for temporal reasoning.…”

“…They adopted a STP-based temporal reasoning approach. 32 , 61 , 66 Because of the temporal reasoning restrictions (e.g. partonomic, class-instance or hypothetical reasoning) of this approach, Anselma et al.…”

“… 30 The management of multimorbid patients is complex because the number of risk factors increases with the number of clinical conditions. 31 , 32 To handle these patients, care plans need to be customised for each individual considering their needs and conditions (e.g. allergies, syndromes, signs) as well as social information, which incorporate a number of multi-disciplinary stakeholders, such as nurses, doctors, therapists and clinical technicians.…”