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Quality Checking of Medical Guidelines through Logical Abduction

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Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XX (SGAI 2003)

Abstract

Formal methods have been used in the past for the verification of the correctness of formalised versions of medical guidelines. In this paper a second possible application of the use of formal methods is proposed: checking whether a guideline conforms to global medical quality requirements. It is argued that this allows spotting design errors in medical guidelines, which is seen as a useful application for formal methods in medicine. However, this type of verification may require medical knowledge currently not available within the guidelines, i.e. medical background knowledge. In this paper, we propose a method for checking the quality of a treatment for a disorder, based on the theory of abductive diagnosis. We also examine the medical background knowledge required to be able to quality check a guideline. The method is illustrated by the formal analysis of an actual guideline for the management of diabetes mellitus type 2.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Computing and Information Sciences, University of Nijmegen, Toernooiveld 1, 6525 ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Peter Lucas

Authors
  1. Peter Lucas
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Frans Coenen

  2. Dept of Computer Science, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Alun Preece

  3. Napier University, International Teledemocracy Centre, Edinburgh, EH10 5DT, UK

    Ann Macintosh BSc, CEng

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag London

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Lucas, P. (2004). Quality Checking of Medical Guidelines through Logical Abduction. In: Coenen, F., Preece, A., Macintosh, A. (eds) Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XX. SGAI 2003. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-412-8_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-412-8_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-780-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-85729-412-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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