The use of the Arden Syntax for MLMs in HIOS+, a decision support system for general practitioners in The Netherlands

This paper covers query creation and evaluation in HIOS+, a General Practitioner Decision Support System. The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC), free-text International Classification of Health Problems in Primary Care (ICHPPC)-II-Defined criteria, and the Arden Syntax for medical logic modules (MLMs) are building blocks in query creation with the free-text formalizer (FF) module. The backward-reasoning formal interpreter (FI) module evaluates queries by checking them against medical patient data. It can advise or warn users on the suitability of a registered diagnostic ICPC code in a patient's case. In all, 101 queries were created in MLM form on a wide range of diseases. The MLMs and FI were evaluated in a field and a laboratory test.