HYDRA: a knowledge acquisition tool for expert systems that critique medical workup.

HYDRA is a computer-based knowledge acquisition tool under development to assist in the creation of expert systems which critique medical workup. To use HYDRA, a domain expert first outlines the recommended approaches to the workup of a chosen medical problem, using the Augmented Transition Network formalism. From this model, HYDRA produces a list of the various conditions for which critiquing comments may be required to react to all possible approaches that might be proposed by the user of the critiquing system. Domain-specific constraints can be used to restrict the number of conditions suggested. In this way, HYDRA assists the domain expert by providing a model for structuring the problem, and by breaking down the domain expert's work into a set of small, easily understood tasks.

An expert system which critiques patient workup: modeling conflicting expertise.

PHEO-ATTENDING is an expert system designed to critique a physician's workup of a patient with a suspected pheochromocytoma. To use PHEO-ATTENDING, a physician describes his patient and indicates any tests or procedures which he has ordered or plans to order and any results already obtained. PHEO-ATTENDING then critiques the workup, discussing its appropriateness for the patient described, and mentioning any other approaches which might be preferred. The goal is to explore the design issues involved in building a computer system which critiques patient workup. A major focus is how best to incorporate conflicting expertise, which occurs when domain experts themselves advocate different approaches to a problem.