Biomedical subjects

Kitty Rosenbrand

Publications and source records attributed to Kitty Rosenbrand.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Improving medical protocols by formal methods.

OBJECTIVES: During the last decade, evidence-based medicine has given rise to an increasing number of medical practice guidelines and protocols. However, the work done on developing and distributing protocols outweighs the efforts on guaranteeing their quality. Indeed, anomalies like ambiguity and incompleteness are frequent in medical protocols. Recent efforts have tried to address the problem of protocol improvement, but they are not sufficient since they rely on informal processes and notations. Our objective is to improve the quality of medical protocols. APPROACH: The solution we suggest to the problem of quality improvement of protocols consists in the utilisation of formal methods. It requires the definition of an adequate protocol representation language, the development of techniques for the formal analysis of protocols described in that language and, more importantly, the evaluation of the feasibility of the approach based on the formalisation and verification of real-life medical protocols. For the first two aspects we rely on earlier work from the fields of knowledge representation and formal methods. The third aspect, i.e. the evaluation of the use of formal methods in the quality improvement of protocols, constitutes our main objective. The steps with which we have carried out this evaluation are the following: (1) take two real-life reference protocols which cover a wide variety of protocol characteristics; (2) formalise these reference protocols; (3) check the formalisation for the verification of interesting protocol properties; and (4) determine how many errors can be uncovered in this way. RESULTS: Our main results are: a consolidated formal language to model medical practice protocols; two protocols, each both modelled and formalised; a list of properties that medical protocols should satisfy; verification proofs for these protocols and properties; and perspectives of the potentials of this approach. Our results have been evaluated by a panel of medical experts, who judged that the problems we detected in the protocols with the help of formal methods were serious and should be avoided. CONCLUSIONS: We have succeeded in demonstrating the feasibility of formal methods for improving medical protocols.

Artificial Intelligence↗

PubMed2004

Protocure: supporting the development of medical protocols through formal methods.

Medical guidelines and protocols describe the optimal care for a specific group of patients and therefore, when properly applied, improve the quality of patient care. During the last decade, a large number of medical guidelines and protocols have been published. However, the work done on developing and disseminating them far outweighs the efforts on guaranteeing their quality. Indeed, anomalies like ambiguity and incompleteness are frequent in medical guidelines and protocols. An approach grounded on a formal representation, can answer these needs, as we have demonstrated in the Protocure project'. The Protocure II project will aim at integrating formal methods in the life cycle of guidelines.

Clinical Protocols↗

PubMed2004

Transforming written guidelines into electronic formats--international perspectives.

The Guidelines International Network (G-1-N www.g-i-n.net) is a major new international initiative involving guideline-developing organisations from around the world. G-I-N seeks to improve the quality of health care by promoting systematic development of clinical practice guidelines and their application into practice. The Network now has over 45 international members, most of whom prepare evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, or actively promote the use of evidence in practice. One of the priorities of the organisation is to share evidence tables and adapt guidelines for local circumstances based on international evidence. In the longer term, guideline developers are planning to create 'living guidelines' that can be continuously updated and used by a number of different countries. A major consideration for guideline developers is how to communicate and work with information technology scientists to develop standards and protocols for the translation of these trans-national guidelines into electronic formats. To be effective, there must be formal internationally agreed standards that allow electronic guidelines to be shared and automatically updated. The Guidelines International Network will be taking a leading international role in working with designers and vendors of electronic decision support systems and tools to guarantee the integrity of guidelines when translated into electronic formats. This presentation by Catherine Marshall, Kitty Rosenbrand and Guenter Ollenschlaeger will: --explore current experiences from New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands --identify issues from the perspective of guideline developers --make recommendations for establishing opportunities for software designers, vendors and informatics experts to collaborate with guideline developers to ensure that up to date evidence can be easily implemented and shared throughout the world.

Decision Support Techniques↗