Formalisation for decision support in anaesthesiology

This paper reports on research for decision support for anaesthesiologists at the University Hospital in Groningen, the Netherlands. Based on CAROLA, an existing automated operation documentation system, we designed a support environment that will assist in real-time diagnosis. The core of the work presented here consists of a knowledge base (containing anaesthesiological knowledge) and a diagnosis system. The knowledge base is specified in the logic-based formal specification language AFSL. This leads to a powerful and precise treatment of knowledge structuring and data abstraction. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.