Digital clinical guidelines modelling

Oliveira T., Costa A., Neves J., Novais P., Digital Clinical Guidelines Modelling, Modelling and Simulation 2011, Novais P., Machado J., Analide C., Abelha A., (Eds.) (ESM’2011 – The 2011 European Simulation and Modelling Conference, Guimarães, Portugal) EUROSIS Publisher, ISBN: 978-9077381-66-3, pp 392-398, 2011.Healthcare environments are very demanding, because practitioners are required to consult many patients in a short period of time, increasing the levels of stress which usually harms the outcome of healthcare processes. The short time practitioners have with their patients does not facilitate informed decision making and checking all possibilities. A possible solution is the use of guideline-based applications, because they have the potential of being an effective means of both changing the process of healthcare and improving its outcomes. However, current Clinical Guidelines are available in text format as long documents, which render them difficult to consult and to integrate in clinical Decision Support Systems. With this paper we present a new model for guideline interpretation, in order to facilitate de development of guideline-based Decision Support Systems and to increase the availability of Clinical Guidelines at the moment of the clinical process. This model will also provide mechanisms to comply with cases where incomplete and uncertain information is present. The development and implementation of this model will be presented in the following pages