Linking clinical guidelines with formal representations

Abstract

Clinical guidelines have been used in the medical domain for some time now, primarily to reduce proneness to errors during the treatment of specific diseases. Recently, physicians have special software at their disposal, which supports them at decision-making based on computerized protocols and guidelines. Using such tools, physicians sometimes want to know the reason why the computer recommends a particular treatment method. To comprehend the suggestions, a connection between the original guideline and its computerized representation is needed. This paper introduces a tool that was designed to provide a solution for that, the so-called Guideline Markup Tool (GMT). This tool enables the protocol designer to create links between the original guideline and its formal representation. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.