[Medical practice-supporting system in pulmonary function testing].

A pulmonary function testing system which automates measurement, storage and reporting as much possible has been functioning in Mitsui Memorial Hospital since 1992. Data obtained from four measurement apparatus are transferred to the central microcomputer by a local area network (LAN). To facilitate automatic interpretation, we developed a knowledge-based system using 87 production rules called 'PADRES', because the knowledge-based system had the following advantages over other systems; (1) The expression of knowledge is understandable and new pieces of knowledge can be easily added, (2) the process of reasoning can be clearly shown, and (3) the accumulation of many instances of data is not required. Using 'PADRES', it takes 2.6 seconds to interpret one set of data on average. Our system performs about 5,000 routine pulmonary function tests per year without faults. Because the program for interpretation is a separate module written in C language, it is readily portable to other operating systems (OS), although its original target was OS-9, a multitask operating system for microcomputers. In conclusion, the application of a knowledge-based system for microcomputers in the pulmonary function test laboratory was considered successful.