Enhancing Support for Knowledge Works: A relatively unexplored vista of computing research

Let us envision a new class of IT systems, the “Support Systems for Knowledge Works” or SSKW. An SSKW can be defined as a system built for providing comprehensive support to human knowledge-workers while performing instances of complex knowledge-works of a particular type within a particular domain of professional activities. To get an idea what an SSKW-enabled work environment can be like, let us look into a hypothetical scenario that depicts the interaction between a physician and a patient-care SSKW during the activity of diagnosing a patient. The patient-care task is practiced by health-care professionals, typically within organizational setups like hospitals. An instance of the task, known as a case, is carried out by a group of professionals (physicians, surgeons, nurses, laboratory technicians etc.) led by a physician (often known as the lead physician for the case) with the primary goal of restoring an ailing patient to state of health. However, the performance also serves various secondary goals achieved through capture and reuse of information about the case. The overall task is usually divided into subtasks or activities such as examination, identification of possible diseases, clinical tests, diagnosis, treatment, follow-up etc. The actions taken during these activities and their results have complex interrelationships. The patient-care SSKW realizes an integrated IT-based system platform which supports all the constituent activities in ways consistent with their interrelationships. Our hypothetical scenario depicts a particular activity by the lead physician (shall be referred as LP hereafter), i.e., diagnosing a patient P with the help of a patient-care SSKW. Making a diagnosis results in identifying a particular disease based on available evidence (e.g., symptoms, signs and medical history of the patient, results of various clinical tests conducted) for which the patient will be treated. Such a scenario is described below. For diagnosing P , LP opens the case in SSKW and the following interactions take place: