1. Objectives:
To develop a system to diagnose cancer patients from source records that investigate potential cases of cancer.
2. The technological problems & risks:
The system not only has to simulate medical diagnosis, it also has to document the logic in such a fashion that medical practitioners and other researchers are satisfied that the system simulates their reasoning. A second challenge is that the data will be interpreted with statistical analysis methods. The logic in the inferential program may not violate important measurement assumptions which could invalidate subsequent statistical interpretations.
3. Personnel:
Project management & the development is done by internal staff, assisted by Rainer von Königslöw acting as design consultant.
4. Project status & plans:
An initial conceptual design is being drafted, at the same time that user requirements are being collected. A concept for testing the validity of the inferences still needs to be developed. The next stage of devising and testing prototypes for the medical reasoning is anticipated to start in mid 1992.