A Multiagent System to Support an Interdisciplinary Healthcare Team: a Case Study of Clinical Obesity Management in Children

An interdisciplinary healthcare team (IHT) has been advocated as a way to manage chronic illnesses. There is growing evidence that operation of an IHT can be improved with better coordination of team’s activities and improved collaboration among team members. This paper proposes MET4 – a multi-agent decision support system developed to facilitate collaboration and coordination among the IHT members by aligning execution of tasks according to a patient management workflow and assigning appropriate team members to these tasks. The system uses the concept of capability and associated competency to do the task – IHT members matching. We illustrate the MET4 system design and operation using a case study describing management of clinically obese children.