Representation of Clinical Nursing Protocols Using GEM II & GEM Cutter

The machineable representation and execution of clinical guidelines has been the focus of research efforts for some time, however there is less examination of whether the methods and techniques for guidelines are sufficient for clinical protocols. The objective of this study was to test the feasibility of using the Guideline Elements Model II (GEM II) and GEM Cutter for the representation of clinical protocols, specifically clinical protocols commonly used by nurses. After downloading the GEM Cutter 2.5, we decomposed a set of clinical protocols and analyzed the completeness in which elemental protocol data was represented. One of the most complicated of these protocols (extravasations of infused medication) is presented as an example. While GEM II adequately represents core elements of clinical protocols at the high level, it was not possible to adequately represent sequence and associated role based permissions via use of conditional criteria at branching and procedural levels. Functionality of the tool would also be enhanced with more robust terminology management and support for multi-authoring.