Clinical Decision Support Systems: A Review on Knowledge Representation and Inference Under Uncertainties

Abstract

This paper provides a literature review in clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) with a focus on the way knowledge bases are constructed, and how inference mechanisms and group decision making methods are used in CDSSs. Particular attention is paid to the uncertainty handling capability of the commonly used knowledge representation and inference schemes. The definition of what constitute good CDSSs and how they can be evaluated and validated are also considered. Some future research directions for handling uncertainties in CDSSs are proposed.

Keywords:

• clinical decision support system
• inference mechanism
• knowledge representation scheme
• knowledge acquisition tool
• group clinical decision making
• uncertainty handling