Automating the knowledge acquisition process in medical expert systems

A knowledge acquisition procedure is presented that is an alternative to the interview process, the traditional method used in knowledge engineering. In an effort to produce a knowledge base in a more timely and efficient manner, an automated procedure is developed. This process examines historical patient cases and generates expert system production rules from them. These rules form an initial knowledge base which can then be honed by the domain expert into the final knowledge base for an expert system. It is found that this automated procedure generates production rules that are equal in value to those produced through the interview process