The Integrated Management Of Health Care Strategies And Differential Diagnosis By Expert System Technology: A Single-Dimensional Approach

The Integrated Management of Child illnesses (IMCI) and the surveillance Health Information Systems (HIS) are related strategies that are designed to manage child illnesses and community practices of diseases. However, both strategies do not function well together because of classification incompatibilities and, as such, are difficult to use by health care personnel in rural areas where a majority of people lack the basic knowledge of interpreting disease classification from these methods. This paper discusses a single approach on how a stand-alone expert system can be used as a prompt diagnostic tool for all cases of illnesses presented. The system combines the action-oriented IMCI and the disease-oriented HIS approaches to diagnose malaria and typhoid fever in the rural areas of the Niger-delta region. {"references": ["Rowe A. K., et al, \"Linking the Integrated Management of Childhood\nIllness (IMCI) and health information system (HIS) classifications:\nissues and options\", Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, 1999,\n77(12):988-995. Source:whqlibdoc.who.int 1999 77(12) 988-995.pdf (online) (Accessed April 27,\n2008).", "Webster. D, \"Malaria Kills One Child Every 30 Seconds\", Journal of\nPublic Health Policy, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2001), pp. 23-33.", "ROLLBACKMALARIA.ORG rollbackmalaria.org (online)\n(Accessed January 09, 2008).", "Adam Hart-Davies, \"What Wateraid Does For Us\", Oasis-the Wateraid\njournal, Spring/Summer2006,pp.6-8 Source:\nhttp://www.wateraid.org(online) (AccessedOctober 15, 2006).", "Tanyigna et al, \"Comparison of blood, bone marrow aspirate, stool and\nurine cultures in the diagnosis of enteric fever\", Niger J Med. 2001 Jan-\nMar; 10(1):21-4.", "WHO/USAID, \"New perspectives: Malaria Diagnosis\", Report of a\njointWHO/USAID informal consultation 25-27, 1999. Source:\nhttp://www.who.int/tdr/cd_publications/pdf/malaria_diagnosis.pdf\n(online) (Accessed December 01, 2007).", "Bojang et al, \"A prospective evaluation of a clinical algorithm for\ndiagnosis of malaria in Gambian Children\", Tropical medicine and\nInternational health, vol. 5 No.4 April 2000, pp. 231-236.", "Chandramohan, D., et al, \"A clinical algorithm for the diagnosis\nofmalaria: results of an evaluation in an area of low endemicity\",\nTropical Medicine and International Health, Vol. 6, No 7, July 2001. pp.\n505-510.", "Anigbogu, S., et al, \"Artificial Intelligence-Based Medical Diagnostic\nExpert System for Malaria and the Related Ailments\", Journal of\nComputer Science & Its Applications, June 2006, Vol. 12 No. 1,\nSource:ncs.org.ng (online) (Accessed\nMarch 08, 2008).\n[10] Koum, G., et al, \"Design of a Two-level Adaptive Multi-Agent System\nfor Malaria Vector driven by an ontology\", BMC Med Inform Decis\nMark. 2007; 7:19. Source:pubmedcentral.nih.gov = 1925067 (online) (Accessed March 08, 2008).\n[11] Walter, B., In: \"$100 Laptop News for the Community \", OLPC News\n2007, One Laptop per Child. Source: laptop.org,)(Accessed November 02, 2007).\n[12] Dike et al; \"Influence of education and knowledge on perceptions and\npractices to control malaria in Southeast Nigeria\", Social science and\nmedicine 63, July 2006, pp. 103-106.\n[13] Simoes et al, \"Performance of health workers after training in integrated\nmanagement of childhood illness in Gondar, Ethiopia: Bulletin of the\nWorld Health Organization\", 1997, 75 (Suppl. 1), pp. 43-53.\n[14] Darlington, K., In: \"The Essence of Expert Systems\", 2005, pp. 110-133,\nPearson Education Ltd.\n[15] Winston. P. H., Artificial Intelligence 3rd ed. 1992, pp. 129-132,\nAddison Wesley.\n[16] Shortliffe, E. & Buchanan, B., \"A Model of Inexact Reasoning in\nMedicine\", in: \"Rule-Based Expert Systems: The MYCIN Experiments\nof the Stanford Heuristic Programming Project\", (Ed: Buchanan, B. &\nShortliffe, E.), Chap. 11, pp 233-262, 1984, AAAI Press.\n[17] Frawley W., et al, \"Knowledge Discovery in Databases: An Overview\",\nSource:egeen.ee (online) (Accessed March 08,\n2008).\n[18] Rafael M. E., et al, \"Reducing the burden of childhood malaria in\nAfrica: the role of improved diagnostics\", Nature , 39-48 (23 November\n2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05445; Published online 22 November 2006.\nSource:nature.com (online)(Accessed May 25, 2008)."]}