Goal-driven management of interacting clinical guidelines for multimorbidity patients

Computer-interpretable guidelines (CIGs) are based on clinical practice guidelines, which typically address a single morbidity. However, most of the aging population suffers from multiple morbidities. Currently, there is no demonstrated effective mechanism that integrates recommendations from multiple CIGs. We are developing a goal-based method that utilizes knowledge of drugs' physiological effects and therapeutic usage to combine knowledge from CIGs. It incrementally detects interactions and plans non-contradicting therapies. Our algorithm uses patterns to check consistency and respond to events, including data enquiries, diagnoses, adverse events, recommended medications, tests, and goals. Our method utilizes existing standards and CIG tools, including the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) patient data model, SNOMED-CT, and the PROforma CIG formalism with its Alium knowledge-engineering environment and PROforma enactment engine. We demonstrate our approach using a case study involving two clinical guidelines with templates for responding to a new goal and to a medication request that causes an inconsistency which can be automatically detected and resolved based on the knowledge of the two CIGs.