The Internet-Based Knowledge Acquisition and Management Method to Construct Large-Scale Distributed Medical Expert Systems

Hongmei Yan, Chongqing University
Yingtao Jiang, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Jun Zheng, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Bingmei Fu, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Shouzhong Xiao, Chongqing University
Chenglin Peng, Chongqing University

Abstract

The Internet offers an unprecedented opportunity to construct powerful large-scale medical expert systems (MES). In these systems, a cost-effective medical knowledge acquisition (KA) and management scheme is highly desirable to handle the large quantities of, often conflicting, medical information collected from medical experts in different medical fields and from different geographical regions. In this paper, we demonstrate that a medical KA/management system can be built upon a three-tier distributed client/server architecture. The knowledge in the system is stored/managed in three knowledge bases. The maturity of the medical know-how controls the knowledge flow through these knowledge bases. In addition, to facilitate the knowledge representation and application in these knowledge bases as well as information retrieval across the Internet, an 8-digit numeric coding scheme with a weight value system is proposed. At present, a medical KA and management system based on the proposed method is being tested in clinics. Current results have showed that the method is a viable solution to construct, modify, and expand a distributed MES through the Internet.