Proteus-A Model for Clinical Protocols Created from Knowledge Components

We describe a model – Proteus, for clinical protocols created with clinical knowledge represented as components. By applying principles of distributed computing the knowledge can be managed by experts at other locations while it is available to the clinicians as executable elements for decision support. Editability in the hands of users is essential for the success of any decision support system. A component approach for knowledge along with a notation system for representing the components allows editability of the protocols by the users. The knowledge components (KCs) also serve as components for an electronic medical record (EMR). Since KCs represent activities within the clinical process, they provide easy way to link components of other clinical or non-clinical processes that are associated or dependent. This provides for extensibility and allows conceiving of integrated information systems that can deal with diverse aspects of healthcare in the Proteus approach.