Medical expert systems: design and applications in pulmonary medicine

Expert systems are computer applications with a built-in knowledge of a special field to solve problems like a human expert on this subject. An expert system consists of an inference component for problem specification and solving, a knowledge base for storage of data, facts, rules and heuristics, an interface for knowledge acquisition, another for the interaction with the user, and a component for reasoning. Pulmonary expert systems are used for automatic interpretations of lung function data which are measured on-line and directly computed. There are also some expert systems for consultation in difficult pulmonary cases and for protection against overlooking rare diseases. Perhaps the most successful applications of pulmonary expert systems are for educational purposes and a large variety of teachware is available. Pulmonary expert systems are presently limited to small applications; often it is necessary to type in large amounts of data and to follow a deeply structured cumbersome dialog. Also, the problem of responsibility for computer decisions has to be mentioned. But pulmonary expert systems as integrated supplements of normal pulmonary measuring devices, as decision support, and as parts of pulmonary teachware will be helpful tools for the pneumological physician.