SMART: a system supporting medical activities in real-time.

This paper describes the system SMART whose goal is real-time assistance to physicians who execute diagnostic or therapeutic protocols in a clinical context. SMART is able to retrieve a protocol from its knowledge base and to monitor its execution step by step for a single patient. Different protocols for different patients can be followed at the same time in a health care structure. The prototype realized supports the execution of protocols for evaluating surgical risks. It has been implemented according to the specifications given by the 4th Surgical Clinic of "Policlinico Umberto I" and reflects the activities actually performed in that hospital. However, the protocol model defined is general purpose and we envisage an easy application to other contexts and therefore to the informatization of other protocols.