[Automatic application of clinical guidelines - from theory to practice]

ClinicaL guidelines (GLs) have been shown to be a powerful tool for enhancing the uniformity and quality of care, reducing its costs. However, since they are typically represented in free text, this leads to low rates of compliance. Therefore, physicians might benefit from GL automated decision support. It should be noted that not many studies evaluate the effect of providing support for the application of GLs over significant stretches of time on the quality of medical decisions. In this paper, we will describe the general architecture of medical decision support systems, review several known GL application frameworks, and focus on the research performed in the medicaL informatics research center at Ben-Gurion University [BGU] of the Negev which developed the Digital ELectronic Guideline Library, called DeGeL. In particular, we will describe a new GL application framework called PICARD that is intended for GL application over time, while ensuring that the GLs recommendations were followed. We will briefly introduce a technical evaluation of PICARD in the cardiology domain to manage patients according to a Coumadin [Warfarin] protocoL, and a functional evaluation in a complex pre-eclampsia/ eclampsia GL in the OB/GYN domain, which we performed with 36 physicians. The results showed that the PICARD creates independence in the quality of the decisions from any particular physician, level of expertise, clinicaL scenario, or decision type within the scenarios. CurrentLy, PICARD is a core component in the EU Mobiguide project, which focuses on remote monitoring and care of chronic patients, using mobile devices to send alerts and recommendations.