Multi-level temporal abstraction for medical scenario construction

The automatic recognition of typical pattern sequences (scenarios), as they are developing, is of crucial importance for computer-aided patient supervision. However, the construction of such scenarios directly from medical expertise is unrealistic in practice. In this paper, we present a methodology for data abstraction and for the extraction of specific events (data mining) to eventually construct such scenarios. Data abstraction and data mining are based on the management of three key concepts, data, information and knowledge, which are instantiated via an ontology specific of our medical domain application. After a detailed description of the proposed methodology, we apply it to the supervision of patients hospitalized in intensive care units. We report the results obtained for the extraction of typical abstracted pattern sequences during the process of weaning from mechanical ventilation. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.