Patient Support Systems - Term Paper Example

Introduction: Patient Support Systems are being used widely to solve the health related problems allover the world. The Expert System and the Intelligent Decision Support System are two software applications used for the patient’s support. This paper attempts to answer some of the questions such as: What are ES and IDSS? Is there any substantive difference between these systems that are aimed at patients and the ones that are aimed at health professionals? Whether it helps patients or not? What problems that patients had are helped by these patient support systems? Do patients accept the systems or resist using them? Is a study to assess the patient support systems and future developments required? Patient Support Systems: The Intelligent Decision Support System is a Decision Support System using Artificial Intelligence with the help of the computer software. “The term is usually used to describe a computer-based system designed to help decision-makers use data, knowledge and communications technology to identify problems and make decisions to solve those problems.” 1 Today, Intelligent Decision Support System is used by the experts and the patients alike all over the world. Artificial Intelligence is being used in every spheres of life and it has got a significant role in the Healthcare sector also. The Expert System is computer software providing a solution to a problem with the use of artificial knowledge. “An expert system is a computer program that simulates the judgment and behavior of a human or an organization that has expert knowledge and experience in a particular field. Typically, such a system contains a knowledge base containing accumulated experience and a set of rules for applying the knowledge base to each particular situation that is described to the program.” 2 There are several rules in the particularly designed software. Experts have good use of it. The Expert System includes everything related to a particular disease for which it is designed such as sings, causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment stages and procedures etc. Expert Systems and Intelligent Decision Support Systems are used for patient support. The reasons for the significance of expert system are having “special knowledge, judgment and experience. Higher performance level than the average person, faster solutions and recognize patterns.” 3 The Expert System mainly comes to the decision by evaluating the data collected from the patients and this is what happens in the medical intervention of the Expert System. “An expert system evaluates the sensor data, combines the sensor data with stored probability data and provides an output signal for notification or medical intervention.” 4 In Intelligent Decision Support System, there are several stages to come to the decision. The stages include examining the symptoms and signs, testing, assessing, diagnosing, and prescription and cost benefit analysis. It is very useful for the people since it touches all the aspects of a disease. Initially these systems were not very useful in taking good decision. It helped to codify the data. “Traditional Decision Support Systems (DSS) give not enough possibilities of intervention to the user. These systems are reduced to an insular and very technical state in which the objective is not support decision but to dump data on the screen in the hope that the user will know what to do with. In complex situations, decision is not structured and it becomes primordial to design intelligent and cooperative systems allowing a joint resolution of problem based on dynamic sharing of the tasks between the user and the system and according to problems to be solved.” 5 Now, the Intelligent Decision Support System is widely used because it tests everything comprehensively related to the illness. Comparing to the Expert System, the Intelligent Decision Support System is found more useful due to the above explained reasons. At the same time, the Expert System is also a good software program widely used. There is no substantive difference between these two systems. There is interrelation between these two systems since the Intelligent Decision Support System make use of the technology of Expert System to assess the problem and to take a decision. Moreover, these two systems are created as computer software which uses Artificial Intelligence. “Intelligent Decision Support Systems (DSSs) use expert systems technology to enhance the capabilities of decision makers (DMs) in understanding a decision problem and selecting a sound alternative.” 6 The Patient Support System helps the patients in different ways by providing several factors in decision making. It keeps the records of the patient, suggests appropriate way to treat the disease and it takes the decision after considering the advanced researches and its results. A study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of Intelligent Decision Support System among intellectual workers in their performance of task. “The main findings of this study are that intellectual workers who are satisfied with IDSS user friendliness perceive their tasks as being more enriching and the systems themselves as being more useful. In addition, if these users perceive a good job outcome with IDSS, then it may lead to the successful performance of the users task.” 7 These Patient Support Systems are successful among the patients because there is less chance for misdiagnosis since every thing is codified in the software. Today there are a lot of problem going on in connection with the misdiagnosis. There are several incidences like the death of a patient due to the misdiagnosis. It can be avoided by the use of Intelligent Decision Support System. The using systems will be available at any time and this availability is one of the advantages for the patients. Many problems of the patient could be solved by the Patient Support System. One important advantages of Patient Support System is the collection of information related to the illness. The patients need not maintain other prescriptions and the result of the tests. Everything will be kept with the system. The Symptoms, diagnosis, and result of various test, and family history are very important for many of the diseases especially heart, liver and mental related diseases. If the patient has some doubts associated with the treatment, it can be clarified using the system. “The areas these systems could help in is diverse from the storing and retrieval of medical records, storing and retrieval of key substances in medicines, examination of real-time data gathered from monitors, analysis of X-Rays, analysis of patient history for the purposes of diagnosis, analysis of family history (for cardiac conditions for example), and in many other areas.” 8 Now a day clinic is also using Clinical Decision Support System to solve the problems. “Clinical Decision Support Systems are computer systems designed to impact clinician decision making about individual patients at the point in time that these decisions are made.” 9 There are many types of decision making support systems for the clinicians. Acceptance of the Patient: The Patient Support System is highly acceptable among patients because of the following advantages. It is being used world widely. There are some reasons why people like this system. They are: There will not arise any problem even though the treating physician is changed These is chances for clarifying doubts It can be checked up at any time Patients need not take the risks of keeping the results of various tests and evaluation related to the treatment. A Study to Assess the Patient Support Systems: The Patient Support Systems are used for all the diseases such as HIV, cancer, obesity, diabetes, malaria etc. A study was conducted to assess the utility of Sweet Talk system among diabetes type 1 patients. There were sixty four diabetes type 1 patients who were selected randomly. The time period of the study had been for twelve months. The result of the study shows that “automated, scheduled text messaging successfully engaged young people with diabetes.:” “The Sweet Talk system could be readily adapted to suit other chronic disease models and age groups, and the results of this study may help to inform the design of future text message support interventions.” 10 Therefore from this result we can say that sweet Talk System is very useful not only with diabetes type 1 patient but also with patients who are inflicted with other diseases also. Future Developments of Patient Support System: The Patient Support System like the Intelligent Decision Support System and Expert System cannot be ignored in the health related issues. Various systems like the Patient Support System are being created day by day. In the future, it will play a significant role and it will be used for the diagnosis, check up, screening, prescription etc. Moreover, it is very important since it suggests the “unique factors of decision making process.” 11 Conclusion: The Expert System and the Intelligent Decision Support System are the two systems used in the healthcare sector that uses Artificial Intelligence. The significance of Patient Support System is very high in today’s world. This paper presents so many issues related to the Expert System and the Intelligent Decision Support System. There is interrelation between these two systems since the Intelligent Decision Support System makes use of the technology of expert system to assess the problem and to take a decision. These Patient Support Systems are successful among the patients because there will not arise any problem even though the treating physician is changed. Bibliography “Archive”, IDSS. 1997. Available from . Berner, E. 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