Difference between revisions of "Arden Syntax"

Revision as of 23:58, 23 May 2009

The Arden syntax was conceptualized in 1989 by medical informaticians who wanted to develop a standard for sharing medical knowledge by writing medical clinical decision support rules based upon rules developed in the 1970s and 80s (1). In 1992 Arden syntax was approved as a standard by the American Society of Testing and Machinery (ASTM). In 1999, Health Language 7 (HL7) produced the second version which is backward compatible and has enhanced constructs. In 2002 the Arden syntax became an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved standard.

In Arden syntax each decision rule is called a medical logic module (MLM) (2). A MLM can be stored in ASCII format and written by any text editor. The Arden syntax was designed to be used with any proprietary clinical decision support system (CDS). Arden syntax MLMs have been used to generate alerts and reminders, administrative support and diagnoses. In CDS systems an event or a change to a patient record triggers at least 1 or more MLMs based upon a condition the MLM is designed to help with(3).

The Arden syntax MLM has three parts: maintenance, library and knowledge. The MLMs are intended to be written and maintained by healthcare providers with limited programming experience or background. An example of a MLM can be viewed at the [health informatics wiki].

1. Karadimas HC, et al. Arden/J: An Architecture for MLM Execution on Java Platform, JAMIA. 2002;9:359-368.

2. Shortliffe EH, Cimino JJ. Biomedical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine.(2006)3rd ed. Springer.

3. Van de Velde R, Degoulet. Clinical Information Systems: A Component-Based Approach.(2002). Springer.

http://healthinformatics.wikispaces.com/Arden+Syntax

Submitted by Cassius Lockett