A menu-driven knowledge base browsing tool

Conventional computer-assisted medical decision-making systems have had limited impact on routine clinical practice. This has stimulated an alternative approach to the utilization of medical knowledge bases. Centering on the storage and retrieval of medical information, it aims to provide clinicians with computerized medical reference systems. In this paper we describe the development of a prototype menu-driven browsing tool, which allows clinicians to browse through the contents of a knowledge base in a number of ways. Operations include interrogation via disease classes, names or attributes; hierarchical display of all or part of a disease profile; printing of a disease profile; construction of differential diagnosis lists and comparison of two diseases. We discuss how the use of a menu-driven interface can help to overcome some of the problems encountered with previous designs of medical reference systems.