Towards Pragmatic Patterns for Clinical Knowledge Management

Paper in proceedings, 2007

We present a research program for identifying, modeling, and making use of generic pragmatic patterns for clinical knowledge management that support evidence-based medicine (EBM). Part of this program is SOMWeb, a system based on Semantic Web technologies, which is used for knowledge sharing and dissemination within an oral medicine community. A study of the use of SOMWeb has been conducted as the first step in the elicitation of important contextual factors and communicative activities involved in knowledge sharing processes in oral medicine. One such activity, community discussion activation, is described using consultation patterns together with the collaboration patterns of de Moor. The general need for context-aware health information systems and the prospective use of approaches within Pragmatic Web in the pursuit of EBM are also discussed.