The role of patient history in a decision support system

The management of the temporal information contained in patient histories is investigated. The problems connected with the use of patient histories in both information systems and decision support systems are taken into account. An adequate formalization based on time intervals is suggested in order to capture both precise and imprecise information. An example of the use of patient history in the context of the management of cardiac arrhythmias is described. The information system under development is based on the ORACLE relational database management system, while the decision support system uses the knowledge engineering tool ART-Inference (Automated Reasoning Tool)