A conceptualisation of an agent-oriented triage decision support system

Abstract

Triage is a complex process in ED that necessitates accurate, consistent and timely decision for assessment and management of incoming patients. With triage officers having different levels of expertise and experience, the triage scales are applied inconsistently, as evident from the lack of uniformity in the existing triaging system in Malaysian hospitals. In many hospitals, the triaging largely occurs in an ad hoc basis, placing patients at risk and contributing to inefficient resource utilisation. A computer system can be used to overcome these problems. Consequently, the paper proposes the development of a knowledge-based, agent-oriented decision support system for triage assessment and management. The ability to implement goal-directed behaviour, communicative processes and schedule-oriented, but concurrently executed tasks among others, make the agent technology suitable to be applied. We intend to adopt a modelling view to knowledge engineering, and plan to use the CommonKADS methodology as a basis for knowledge engineering, modelling and knowledge base development. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.