Consultation

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Consultation systems carry on an interactive dialogue with clinicians in an attempt to help them arrive at a correct diagnoses or therapeutic decisions. These systems can be used by physicians to determine the test or procedure that will be most likely to help them confirm or rule out a specific diagnosis. One of the earliest consultation systems, MYCIN, was developed by Shortliffe in the early 1970s [Shortliffe, 1975]. Clinicians interacted with MYCIN through a long series of questions designed to elicit the patient's clinical state and then help the clinician select the appropriate antibiotic. More recently informaticians have utilized the consultation model for the implementation of clinical practice guidelines. Very few of these systems have met with extensive or even continued use in real-life clinical situations.


  1. Shortliffe EH, Davis R, Axline SG, Buchanan BG, Green CC, Cohen SN. Computer-based consultations in clinical therapeutics: explanation and rule acquisition capabilities of the MYCIN system. Comput Biomed Res 1975 Aug;8(4):303-20