kk@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Kathleen King) (04/27/89)
I'm involved with a project attempting to provide computational support (probably in the form of a diagnostic decision aid) for rural health workers in developing countries. Does anyone know of any related or similar work, not necessarily just for health workers in developing countries but even for primary health care in general? All contributions gratefully received........ kathleen
mt@mit-amt (Michael Travers) (04/28/89)
In article <778@aipna.ed.ac.uk> kk@uk.ac.ed.aipna (Kathleen King) writes: > >I'm involved with a project attempting to provide computational support >(probably in the form of a diagnostic decision aid) for rural health >workers in developing countries. Does anyone know of any related or >similar work... I worked on a very similar project about five years ago, at the Centre Mondial Informatique in France. The idea was to get a diagnostic expert system into a ruggedized portable computer. The project got as far as an initial field test in Chad before politics killed it. Unfortunately there were no publications that I know of. The leader of the project was Harold Goldberger, last seen at the MIT AI lab. I believe that Benoit Hap, a doctor affiliated with Medicine Sans Frontieres who worked with the project, is now doing similar work. -- Michael Travers / MIT Media Lab / mt@media-lab.media.mit.edu
geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks) (04/28/89)
In article <778@aipna.ed.ac.uk> kk@uk.ac.ed.aipna (Kathleen King) writes: > >I'm involved with a project attempting to provide computational support >(probably in the form of a diagnostic decision aid) for rural health >workers in developing countries. Does anyone know of any related or >similar work, not necessarily just for health workers in developing >countries but even for primary health care in general? > This is an old idea. Several incantations have been done on it, the last being an official one by the government of France, I believe, about 5 years ago. As far as I know, all of them have failed for various reasons. There is an huge corpus of work on medical expert systems, much of which has come from our university and laboratory. The main problem is the gigantic size of the knowledge base.
jfbrule@cmx.npac.syr.edu (Jim Brule) (04/29/89)
In article <778@aipna.ed.ac.uk> kk@uk.ac.ed.aipna (Kathleen King) writes: > >I'm involved with a project attempting to provide computational support >(probably in the form of a diagnostic decision aid) for rural health >workers in developing countries. Does anyone know of any related or >similar work, not necessarily just for health workers in developing >countries but even for primary health care in general? > I was project leader for a large expert system designed to take medical histories, from that recommend tests to determine the =preventable= (or treatable) diseases that the patient was likely to encounter, incorporate the results of the tests (rendered electronically), and then create a treatment plan to be delivered to the patient by a health care professional. Most of the tests were genetic in nature. The project was underwritten at the time by the health insurance industry. It suffered fragmentation when venture capitalists were brought into the picture, but the expert system was complete and functional (as demonstrated by a successful field test). I'd be happy to provide more info in response to specific questions, etc. There were over a dozen diseases, and their interactions, covered in the system. ~~~Jim -- Thirty thousand mighty suns shone down in a soul- *jfbrule@cmx.npac.syr.edu searing splendor that was more frighteningly cold ************************* in its awful indifference than the bitter wind * Isaac Asmiov that shivered across the cold, horribly bleak world.* "Nightfall" #! rnews 1048 Path: psuvm.bitn
reiter@babbage.harvard.edu (Ehud Reiter) (04/29/89)
In article <3753@mit-amt> mt@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Michael Travers) writes: >I worked on a very similar project about five years ago, at the Centre >Mondial Informatique in France. The idea was to get a diagnostic >expert system into a ruggedized portable computer. The project got as >far as an initial field test in Chad before politics killed it. >Unfortunately there were no publications that I know of. There was at least one publication: H. Goldberger and P. Schwenn, "Man-Machine Symbiosis in the Assistance and Training of Rural Health Workers: A Proposal", in J. Pages (ed), MEETING THE CHALLENGE: INFORMATICS AND MEDICAL EDUCATION, Elselvier, 1983. Ehud Reiter reiter@harvard (ARPA,BITNET,UUCP) reiter@harvard.harvard.EDU (new ARPA)
patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring) (05/02/89)
In article <778@aipna.ed.ac.uk> kk@uk.ac.ed.aipna (Kathleen King) writes: >I'm involved with a project attempting to provide computational support >(probably in the form of a diagnostic decision aid) for rural health >workers in developing countries. Does anyone know of any related or >similar work, not necessarily just for health workers in developing >countries but even for primary health care in general? Try Baylor College of Medicine in Texas - they were linked with PAN AM NET (or some such name) into Central/South America and probably still are -- it's been about two years since I called there and I know they have a BBS - perhaps a call to their computer center would get the information you need. Good luck! -- Patt Haring rutgers!cmcl2!ccnysci!patth patth@ccnysci.BITNET