A unified Knowledge Discovery tool within the scope of patient follow-up

• Autor(a) principal: António, Francisco José de Souza
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/155376
• topic: Decision Support Systems; Digital Healthcare; Knowledge Discovery; Web Application Tool; Standardization; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Eletrotécnica, Eletrónica e Informática

The number of chronic patients is increasing worldwide, driving the need to have new and innovative ways to monitor patients. Knowledge Discovery can aid in multiple areas, including healthcare. One of the challenges of Knowledge Discovery projects is the fact that usually the different steps of the project are conducted with separate tools, and requires the assistance of data specialists with coding skills. To help physicians follow up with their patients, and at the same time help researchers conduct Knowledge Discovery studies, a web application tool was created. This tool aims to increase the normalization of the data collection process and help with the application of pre-established business rules, through the possibility to manage forms with multiple types of questions and to structure an evaluation using rules to analyze the given answers, providing the answerer with a response. It also makes the data visualization and preparation process more convenient by offering the capability to visualized and process the collected data from the forms, using implemented filters or through functions that can be defined. Finally, it is possible to extract knowledge from the collected data throughout integrated learning algorithms (supervised and unsupervised) that create models.By loading an already collected data set to test the tool, it becomes clear the applicability of the tool and how practical it makes Knowledge Discovery projects. As a unified Knowledge Discovery tool, able to help with patient follow-up and guidance, this tool was implemented in two projects in the field of medicine, one targeting patients with juvenile rheumatic diseases at the Portuguese Egas Moniz Hospital and the other directed to patients after the end of oncological treatment on the Spanish Puerta de Hierro University Hospital.