Development of an Assistance System for the Intuitive Assessment of Laboratory Findings in Oncology

Abstract

Due to the broad spectrum of individual functionalities, current hospital information systems in most cases do not offer quick information access or proper assistance in information assessment. This results in extensive use of raw value representations and the need to process and evaluate those cognitively through the physician. This can result in an error-prone and ineffective process, especially in complex and chronic treatment scenarios. With an example scenario of laboratory value assessment in head and neck oncology, we have evaluated the requirements for extensive support of case interpretation through the conduction of a Delphi study including five medical experts with different levels of expertise. Based on the results, we propose a solution with integrated HL7 FHIR compliant clinical decision-support functionality through a set of integrated rules from relevant clinical practice guidelines. Furthermore, we introduce the implementation of a dedicated application that allows for the definition of custom laboratory value evaluation rules to enable automated and patientindividual value interpretation.

Keywords

• clinical decision support
• laboratory findings
• clinical knowledge management
• hl7 fhir
• clinical assistance
• head and neck oncology