Assessing Practice Conformance for Hypertension Management Using an Expert System

摘要

A computer-based advice system, HT-ADVISOR (formerly HT-ATTENDING), has been constructed to aid the physician in the pharmacologic management of essential hypertension. This paper describes the use of the program to assess conformance to the practice guidelines developed in constructing the system. A methodology to categorize the different types of advice is described. Analysis of data from 224 actual cases reveals that at least one critical comment is generated in 78% of the cases, while in 28% of the cases a drug regimen is identified which clearly does not conform with accepted practice. The program performed reliably, providing pertinent constructive advice, and appears to be well suited for use in this domain.