Abstract
A. Objective
Clinical Decision Support (CDS) systems (CDSSs) that integrate clinical guidelines need to reflect real-world co-morbidity. In patient-specific clinical contexts, transparent recommendations that allow for contraindications and other conflicts arising from co-morbidity are a requirement. We aimed to develop and evaluate a non-proprietary, standards-based approach to the deployment of computable guidelines with explainable argumentation, integrated with a commercial Electronic Health Record (EHR) system in a middle-income country.
B. Materials and Methods
We used an ontological framework, the Transition-based Medical Recommendation (TMR) model, to represent, and reason about, guideline concepts, and chose the 2017 International Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) guideline and a Serbian hospital as the deployment and evaluation site, respectively. To mitigate potential guideline conflicts, we used a TMR-based implementation of the Assumptions-Based Argumentation framework extended with preferences and Goals (ABA+G). Remote EHR integration of computable guidelines was via a microservice architecture based on HL7 FHIR and CDS Hooks. A prototype integration was developed to manage Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with comorbid cardiovascular or chronic kidney diseases, and a mixed-methods evaluation was conducted with 20 simulated cases and five pulmonologists.
C. Results
Pulmonologists agreed 97% of the time with the GOLD-based COPD symptom severity assessment assigned to each patient by the CDSS and 98% of the time with one of the proposed COPD care plans. Comments were favourable on the principles of explainable argumentation; inclusion of additional co-morbidities was suggested in the future along with customisation of the level of explanation with expertise.
D. Conclusion
An ontological model provided a flexible means of providing argumentation and explainable artificial intelligence for a long-term condition. Extension to other guidelines and multiple co-morbidities is needed to test the approach further.
Clinical Decision Support (CDS) systems (CDSSs) that integrate clinical guidelines need to reflect real-world co-morbidity. In patient-specific clinical contexts, transparent recommendations that allow for contraindications and other conflicts arising from co-morbidity are a requirement. We aimed to develop and evaluate a non-proprietary, standards-based approach to the deployment of computable guidelines with explainable argumentation, integrated with a commercial Electronic Health Record (EHR) system in a middle-income country.
B. Materials and Methods
We used an ontological framework, the Transition-based Medical Recommendation (TMR) model, to represent, and reason about, guideline concepts, and chose the 2017 International Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) guideline and a Serbian hospital as the deployment and evaluation site, respectively. To mitigate potential guideline conflicts, we used a TMR-based implementation of the Assumptions-Based Argumentation framework extended with preferences and Goals (ABA+G). Remote EHR integration of computable guidelines was via a microservice architecture based on HL7 FHIR and CDS Hooks. A prototype integration was developed to manage Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with comorbid cardiovascular or chronic kidney diseases, and a mixed-methods evaluation was conducted with 20 simulated cases and five pulmonologists.
C. Results
Pulmonologists agreed 97% of the time with the GOLD-based COPD symptom severity assessment assigned to each patient by the CDSS and 98% of the time with one of the proposed COPD care plans. Comments were favourable on the principles of explainable argumentation; inclusion of additional co-morbidities was suggested in the future along with customisation of the level of explanation with expertise.
D. Conclusion
An ontological model provided a flexible means of providing argumentation and explainable artificial intelligence for a long-term condition. Extension to other guidelines and multiple co-morbidities is needed to test the approach further.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Wiley Online Library |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 19 Jul 2023 |