The role of Web agents in medical knowledge management

The intelligent agent approach offers the promise of remaking a traditional enterprise into a learning organization, one that uses progressive information technology and information strategies to study its outcomes prospectively, to avoid repetition of past errors, and to improve its effectiveness continuously. This paper explores whether agent technology can fulfill this promise in health care, both in a general sense and in terms of knowledge management and performance support. A case study is presented to illustrate some lessons learned and the pitfalls that need to be avoided as the development of agents proceeds.