An ontology-based mediator of clinical information for decision support systems: a prototype of a clinical alert system for prescription.

Full Abstract

OBJECTIVE: We have been developing a decision support system that uses electronic clinical data and provides alerts to clinicians. However, the inference rules for such a system are difficult to write in terms of representing domain concepts and temporal reasoning. To address this problem, we have developed an ontology-based mediator of clinical information for the decision support system. METHODS: Our approach consists of three steps: 1) development of an ontology-based mediator that represents domain concepts and temporal information; 2) mapping of clinical data to corresponding concepts in the mediator; 3) temporal abstraction that creates high-level, interval-based concepts from time-stamped clinical data. As a result, we can write a concept-based rule expression that is available for use in domain concepts and interval-based temporal information. The proposed approach was applied to a prototype of clinical alert system, and the rules for adverse drug events were executed on data gathered over a 3-month period. RESULTS: The system generated 615 alerts. 346 cases (56%) were considered appropriate and 269 cases (44%) were inappropriate. Of the false alerts, 192 cases were due to data inaccuracy and 77 cases were due to insufficiency of the temporal abstraction. CONCLUSION: Our approach enabled to represent a concept-based rule expression that was available for the prototype of a clinical alert system. We believe our approach will contribute to narrow the gaps of information model between domain concepts and clinical data repositories.

Author information

Author/s: Kawazoe, Y (Y); Ohe, K (K);

Affiliation: Department of Planning, Information and Management, University of Tokyo Hospital, Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. kawazoe-tky(-atsign-)umin.ac.jp

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Methods of information in medicine (Methods Inf Med), published in Germany. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-; vol 47 (issue 6) : pp 549-59

Dates: Created 2008/12/08; Completed 2009/02/06;

PMID: 19020690, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00)

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