A multimedia information system for home health-care support

The author describes Guardian, a knowledge based home health-care support system in the domain of childhood leukaemia. Guardian is part of a joint project between IBM Research and the New England Medical Center for building a prototype home-care system for children with leukaemia. The prototype system consists of a set of applications, including consultation and symptoms analysis, procedure guidance, emotional support, and communications, implemented in Smalltalk/OS2. This article focuses on the knowledge-based system, which helps parents better understand the symptoms or problems their child is experiencing and provides them with relevant therapeutic information.