A Data Structure for Decision Support Systems, Medical Expert Systems and Clinical Decision Making

The International Classifications of disease (ICD10) is normalized the into a relational containing tables for the etiology, body regions, organs, pathogenesis, cells, subcellular organelles, direction of change, time course and degree. Functions and morphology of different organs are abstracted into the general organ. The hierarchal structures of the etiology and anatomy are implemented. The database enables the construction of diagnoses according to the equation d:=e+o+p, where d, e, o and p each is a variable holding names of a diagnoses, etiology, organ and pathogenesis, respectively. Together, the data structure and the equation d:=e+o+p allow structured clinical decision making and a combinatorial classification.