A Medical Knowledge-Based System Shell for Thai Physicians

This paper presents the design and development of a medical knowledge-based system shell or MedKBS Shell. The system is used as an online assistant tool of thai physicians. The components of the designed MedKBS Shell is composed of four subsystems. First, the Rule-based Knowledge Acquisition Editor is designed to add, edit, delete and manage domain knowledge from physicians. Second, the Medical Knowledge Base is designed to contain specific knowledge on the medical problem area as provided by the physician. Third, the Forward/Backward-Chaining Inference Engine is knowledge processor which is modeled after the physician's diagnosis. Fourth, the User Interface Unit is designed to ask question and interactive between the system and user. This system is developed and tested with five thai physicians. The study has indicated that the developed MedKBS Shell is accurate and reliable in acquiring and inferencing the domain knowledge. The MedKBS Shell can be employed as an effective and efficient online tool for developing medical knowledge-based system.