Enhancing conventional Web content with intelligent knowledge processing

Abstract

The Internet has revolutionized the way knowledge can be accessed and presented. However, the explosion of web content that has followed is now producing major difficulties for effective selection and retrieval of information that is relevant for the task in hand. In disseminating clinical guidelines and other knowledge sources in healthcare, for example, it may be desirable to provide a presentation of current knowledge about best practice that is limited to material appropriate to the current patient context. A promising solution to this problem is to augment conventional guideline documents with decision-making and other "intelligent" services tailored to specific needs at the point of care. In this paper we describe how BMJ's Clinical Evidence, a well-known medical reference on the web, was enhanced with patient data acquisition and decision support services implemented in PROforma. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.