Encoding a Clinical Practice Guideline Using Guideline Interchange Format: a Case Study of a Depression Screening and Management Guideline

Purpose: Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are common tools for clinicians in daily practice. In order to use CPGs effectively at the point of care, representing CPGs into computer-interpretable format is essential. Since computer-interpretable guidelines (CIGs) have been reported to increase clinicians' usage of guidelines and improve patient's outcomes, it is critical to assess health care knowledge translated from CPGs into CIGs. The overall goal of this study was to illustrate the steps involved in encoding a guideline in guideline interchange format-3 (GLIF3) through a case study of a depression screening and management CPG for a nursing decision support system (DSS).

Methods: This study consisted of five steps: (1) Selection of a CPG; (2) extraction and categorization in GLIF3 of concepts related to depression screening and management tasks; (3) converting GLIF3 steps to a flowchart; (4) creation of scenarios representing possible execution paths; (5) guideline execution engine (GLEE) execution of scenarios.

Discussion: This study contributes to the body of knowledge regarding creation of CIGs and the use of GLEE as an evaluation tool for the encoded CIG in GLIF format for a depression CPG. CPG representation using GLIF3 and its evaluation by GLEE are useful methods to prepare nursing CPGs for implementation in a DSS.