Collaborative Knowledge Building for Decision Support System Development

The clinical domain of cognitive diseases and dementia is recognized by its highly complex knowledge domain, requiring expertise and experience in handling situations with a variety of symptoms and diseases, distributed over different levels in organizations and different professions. In this paper a pilot study is presented where eight experienced physicians in Sweden and Japan used an early prototype of the decision-support system DMSS (Dementia Management and Support System) in one to five well-known patient cases each. The prototype functioned as a mediator of a reflective conceptual artifact, i.e., the current understanding of the activity in focus in each patient case. The aim was to develop a common understanding of the clinical domain knowledge, differences in local process knowledge, needs for support and interactivity, by using the prototype as mediator. The physicians were observed using the system and interviewed individually and in groups. Results include adjustments of knowledge sources, terminology and design of user interface, interaction and knowledge base.