Re: [UCR] Decision Support Use Case

Deborah, Thank you for your detailed comments. 


> [UCR] Decision Support Use Case
> 
> Approval of Section 2.2 Decision Support:  No.
> 
> I think this text is not okay unless changes are made.  A general 
> problem is that it?s not possible to tell where and how the RIF is 
> functioning to assist decisions in this use case.  The description 
> of MEDIC suggests an application that seems to involve much more 
> than exchanging rules, though rule sharing might be a pre-requisite 
> (see emphasis below): 

Indeed, rule sharing is only a prerequisite; there is much more going on 
in any decision support system than sharing. You are right, though, that 
the emphasis in the use case needs to be on the sharing, and that the text 
needs to make this clear.
> 

> 
> It?s not clear that the RIF is used at all by the other two 
> decision-support systems mentioned in the use case, viz., the expert
> system that evaluates/diagnoses the patient?s brain scan (?an expert
> system that helps interpret brain scans?), and the e-learning 
> software used by residents.

The expert system that evaluates/diagnoses the patient's brain scan was 
taken from the specific use case on Fuzzy Reasoning with Brain Anatomical 
Structures ( 
http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/Fuzzy_Reasoning_with_Brain_Anatomical_Structures 
). That use case, taken it its entirety, makes much more clear the role of 
the RIF and gives examples of what some rules would look like. Some 
details of this use case can be added back to the abstracted Decision 
Support Use Case, which would probably make the case a lot clearer. The 
e-learning system comes from the specific use case 
http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/Distributed_e-Learning . While that 
use case did not contain a narrative section, the use of the RIF for 
e-Learning is clear in the sequence section. That information could be 
added back to the abstracted use case.
 
> 
> In addition, it would be helpful to have an expanded introductory 
> paragraph describing different general types of decision support and
> ways in which the RIF could facilitate it.  One aid to decision 
> support is already covered by the first use case (2.1), Information 
> Integration.  Use cases 2.3 and 2.4, and elements of others, also 
> describe uses of the RIF in applications that help people make 
> better decisions.  Perhaps the following are some ways to 
> characterize distinctive uses of the RIF in decision support, which 
> might be exemplified in the use case.  A Rule Interchange Format may
> aid decision support applications by:
> 
>             1. Improving situation assessment ? e.g., diagnosing and
> prescribing for Bob.  Another place where RIF might be useful in 
> this example would be if the modifications of Bob?s drug regime had 
> been suggested to his doctor by a diagnostic program that compared 
> Bob?s lab results to guidelines for the use of pharmaceuticals.  If 
> the drug manufacturers encoded their guidelines, contraindications, 
> clearance times, etc., in RIF or a format that was mapped to RIF, 
> then that information could be made available both to a diagnostic 
> program that helps Bob?s physician update the patient?s medications,
> and to an application like MEDIC which relates drug information to 
> events such as MRIs or surgery. 
>             2. Improving situation monitoring ? e.g., enriched 
> handling of ICU patients? real-time data.
>             3. Improving medical event planning ? e.g., scheduling 
> Bob?s MRI.  This could be viewed more generally as plan assessment. 
> (It would be more useful if the hospital?s system automatically 
> checked physician-prescribed courses of action against something 
> like MEDIC, rather than relying on the technician to check.)
>             4. Assisting professional/technical education ? e.g., e-
> learning, and also pushing information to physicians and technicians
> as it becomes available from manufacturers of drugs and equipment, 
> from journal articles and from evaluations and/or policies.  In the 
> case of e-learning, it might be emphasized that data and rules 
> describing a learner?s profile might interact with rules about the 
> pedagogical presentation of information in a domain to customize the
> learner?s experience.

These are excellent suggestions. I especially like your suggestions of 
ways to incorporate situation assessment into the existing narrative. 
Situation assessment was one of the original use cases not incorporated 
into the abstracted use case, and you are right that it should be there.

> 
> It would also be good to close the decision-support use case with a 
> paragraph that summed up the uses of RIF in the example and 
> generalized to analogous non-medical cases.  It could also mention 
> additional types of cases not detailed in the example.

Agreed.