Linking Guidelines for Mammography to an Electronic Medical Record for Use by Patients

Introduction. Traditionally, clinical guidelines are used by only by clinicians; patient-oriented versions are generally less available. Besides being difficult for patients to use, guidelines can offer conflicting advice, which may lead to confusion and interfere with decision making. For example, medical experts simply do not agree on the frequency of performing the mammography for breast cancer screening for 40year-old women or even on which cases it has any value at all. To address these problems, we have integrated rule-based clinical guidelines with an electronic medical record for use directly by patients, to support patient-oriented guidelines with patientspecific recommendations.