Developing guideline-based decision support systems using protégé and jess

The Institute of Medicine has identified both computerized physician order entry and electronic prescription as keys to reducing medication errors and improving safety. Many computerized clinical decision support systems can enhance practitioner performance. However, the development of such systems involves a long cycle time that makes it difficult to apply them on a wider scale. This paper presents a suite of guideline modeling and execution tools, built on Protégé, Jess and Java technologies, which are easy to use, and also capable of automatically synthesizing clinical decision support systems for clinical practice guidelines of moderate complexity.