An Internet-based ontology editor for medical appropriateness criteria

Appropriateness criteria and practice guidelines seek to promote the cost-effectiveness use of medical interventions, and can be most useful when integrated with computer-based patient records and order-entry systems. Building an abstract model (ontology) of appropriateness criteria can require considerable effort among investigators at geographically dispersed institutions. To facilitate the construction and maintenance of ontologies for clinical appropriateness criteria, the author developed an Internet-based system for viewing and editing the knowledge model. The system, called NEON (Network-based Editor for ONtologies), uses the World Wide Web as a platform-independent user interface. NEON allows users to edit the indexing terms and the semantic network that form the ontology for a set of appropriateness criteria. Ontologies built using the system can be imported and exported using an open, internationally standardized format based on the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).