Expert Systems Applied to Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Expert Systems Applied to - Essay Example Expert systems consist of a number of components such as the knowledge base, the inference engine and the user interface. The knowledge base contains all the data and information collected from the domain whereas the inference engine manipulates this information in looking to find a recommended course of action. The User interface provides the platform through which the system user can interact with the program. The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine primarily focuses on developing programs that can carry out diagnostic functions and suggest therapeutic recommendations. They are based on representative models of ailment entities in relation to factors such as their clinical manifestation and their ramifications on patient factors. Knowledge based systems are commonly used in clinical situations since they can withhold a vast knowledge base especially with regards to a particularly defined task. For this reason, the use of expert systems in the medical field applies in various functions within a hospital. For instance, expert systems can be used for generating reminders and alerts in real-time scenarios where they are attached to monitors as indicators used in monitoring changes in the condition of patients. In relatively acute cases, they can be used to scan lab test outcomes or medication prescriptions and generate reminders and alerts through e-mail or text message systems. Expert systems can also be used for diagnostic aid where the patient data can be checked against a system’s knowledge base to try and come up with accurate diagnosis in cases where the case of a patient is complex or unique or the diagnostician is relatively inexperienced (Wai et al. par. 63). An example of one such system is DXplain; a clinical decision support mechanism used to aid in diagnosis by looking at a set of symptoms, signs and laboratory results and generating a ranked list of possible diagnoses while at the same