Knowledge-based visualization of time-oriented clinical data.

We describe a domain-independent framework (KNAVE) specific to the task of interpretation, summarization, visualization, explanation, and interactive exploration in a context-sensitive manner through time-oriented raw clinical data and the multiple levels of higher-level, interval-based concepts that can be abstracted from these data. The KNAVE exploration operators, which are independent of any particular clinical domain, access a knowledge base of temporal properties of measured data and interventions that is specific to the clinical domain. Thus, domain-specific knowledge underlies the domain-independent semantics of the interpretation, visualization, and exploration processes. Initial evaluation of the KNAVE prototype by a small number of users with variable clinical and informatics training has been encouraging.