Embedding Rules in a Pre-Hospital Mobile Database

Healthcare systems, especially Emergency Medical Services systems, will greatly benefit from new developments in mobile database technology. One area that has received little attention is the representation of rules for accurate data capture in a mobile environment. Herein we describe the use of semantic web technologies to embed rules in a mobile database. The rules are presented as Topic Maps and are accessed by a Semantic Interpretation Layer (SIL). Embedding rules in mobile healthcare applications will ensure accurate patient data capture and speed the creation of large knowledge bases of patient information. These knowledge bases will, in turn, support the creation of intelligent patient care systems that can not only define, but begin to anticipate patient care needs.