Ontologies Applied in Clinical Decision Support System Rules: Systematic Review.

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Knowledge Representation
• Health Information Technology

Background:

• Clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) are crucial for healthcare quality and safety.
• Current CDSS rules lack routine sharing and reuse, hindering their broader application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review the literature on ontologies applied to CDSS rules.
• To identify the current status and frontiers of ontology use in CDSS rule management and maintenance.
• To explore how ontologies can promote the reuse of CDSS rules.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search across PubMed, ACM Digital Library, and Nursing & Allied Health Database.
• Focused on the intersection of ontologies, clinical decision support, and rules.
• Followed Grounded Theory and PRISMA 2020 guidelines, with independent validation of screening and results.

Main Results:

• 81 publications showed CDSSs primarily manage chronic conditions, medication alerts, and treatment recommendations.
• CDSS rules were found in Semantic Web Rule Language, Jess, or Jena formats.
• Ontologies have been used for medical knowledge and terminologies but not for CDSS rule management or reuse.

Conclusions:

• Ontologies effectively organize medical knowledge, vocabularies, and CDSS rule content.
• Limited reuse of CDSS rules has been observed.
• Further work is needed to enhance the reusability and interoperability of CDSS rules using ontologies and Semantic Web technologies.