Title :
Building a speech interface to a medical diagnostic system
Author :
Shiffman, Smadar ; Wu, Alice W. ; Poon, Alex D. ; Lane, Christopher D. ; Middleton, Blackford ; Miller, Randolph A. ; Masarie, Fred E., Jr. ; Cooper, Gregory F. ; Shortliffe, Edward H. ; Fagan, Lawrence M.
Author_Institution :
Stanford Univ., CA, USA
Abstract :
A description is given of the design of an interface for QMR-DT, an evolving decision-theoretic version of Quick Medical Reference, which performs diagnostic reasoning about diseases in internal medicine. QMR-DT encompasses the part of QMR´s functionality that provides differential diagnoses for a set of patient characteristics, but it uses a different algorithm to compute diagnoses. The work described includes two programs that integrate off-the-shelf speech technology with programs that manipulate medical terminology. The term identifier program uses an isolated-word, speaker-dependent speech product to provide an interface for entering medical findings into QMR-DT. Frame browser is an auxiliary program used by the developers of term identifier to examine frame structures. Frame browser was also used to experiment with a continuous-speech system.<>
Keywords :
decision support systems; inference mechanisms; medical diagnostic computing; natural languages; speech analysis and processing; user interfaces; QMR-DT; Quick Medical Reference; continuous-speech system; diagnostic reasoning; differential diagnoses; diseases; evolving decision-theoretic version; frame structures; internal medicine; isolated-word; medical diagnostic system; medical terminology; off-the-shelf speech technology; patient characteristics; speaker-dependent speech product; term identifier program; Computer interfaces; Control systems; Displays; Graphics; Medical control systems; Medical diagnosis; Medical diagnostic imaging; Natural languages; Speech recognition; Terminology;
Journal_Title :
IEEE Expert
