Building Clinical Trust in Automated Knowledge Acquisition

The aim of this chapter is to describe the process of medical knowledge acquisition from a historical context and to define the requirements for producing knowledge which is able to be trusted and applied in a clinical setting. This is related to modern data mining approaches which do not yet adequately address these requirements. This is believed to be the most critical issue in the acceptance of data mining in the medical domain. The chapter will discuss how data mining can address these needs and will provide discussion of a technical solution to the stated issues. Overall this chapter aims to demonstrate that the individual needs of all medical professionals can be addressed and that data mining can be a valuable tool in the diagnostic and decision making toolkit. It will also empower medical professionals to take a greater role in the development of such systems by providing a checklist of features to include and pitfalls to avoid, thus ensuring greater success in future systems.