WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA – The knowledge engine at work behind the scenes in Prognition Corp.’s Mavenlive exercise prescription software is changing the way physical therapists approach documentation and prescription.
Now Prognition Corp.’s president, Dr. Jay Winburn, is looking to expand that knowledge engine’s usefulness into other areas throughout the healthcare industry.
“Mavenlive has enables clinicians to automate tasks such as prescribing physiotherapy exercises and drafting letters to doctors,” Dr. Winburn says. “But when thinking of the big picture, there are plenty of possibilities in terms of application.”
Behind the Scenes of the Knowledge Engine
Prognition’s knowledge engine helps make decision-making processes automatic, says Chris Metcalfe, a software engineer and vice president of technical development at Prognition, which produces Mavenlive physical therapy documentation software.
“It is very useful in instances where you can describe a specific situation,” he says.
Metcalfe compares and contrasts the knowledge engine to performing a Google search. The first time a user conducts a Google search, he/she is faced with a blank text box, and getting what you want out of it properly requires some initial know-how. There is some learning involved as to how to type in words and phrases properly so Google knows what the user is searching for.
“You have to know a bit about how Google works to be able to type in the appropriate words to get back what you want,” Metcalfe says.
With the knowledge engine that is at work within Mavenlive’s exercise software, physical therapy clinicians simply must describe a situation.
“You don’t have to do any guess work,” Dr. Winburn says. “There is no learning necessary in order to ask the right question, which is different when you’re doing something such as a keyword search on Google.”
This knowledge engine has been beneficial to physical therapy practices when prescribing rehabilitation exercises and performing other tasks by generating better information from the system back to the user.
“There’s no doubt as to what you’re asking for when you’re describing a situation,” Dr. Winburn says. “With Google search, a certain word could be interpreted multiple ways. With our knowledge engine, the information you use to describe has context to it. If you’re referring to something, the system will know what context you’re referring to.”
In a nutshell, the knowledge engine automates decisions physical therapists likely make numerous times a day. If they see numerous patients with the same kind of injuries, they likely are prescribing the same exercises, he says.
All of this is based on the information that is put into the system. It instantly maps input- the terms used to describe a situation- to output, which are the prescribed exercises and any additional visit-related tasks.
“This has the potential to span a variety of industries, including the pharmaceutical and medical supplies industries,” Dr. Winburn says.
Another favorable aspect is the ability to change the knowledge engine itself. If a you have a specific protocol for treating certain injuries and conditions, you can modify the knowledge engine to include your best practice policies and it will present exercises that will conform to your best practice policy.
We recently opened a satellite office in the Plug and Play Tech Center, an IT business incubator located in the Silicon Valley, in hope of developing partnerships with other healthcare technology companies whose products could benefit from our software’s knowledge engine.
“We need to find the people who are behind the initiatives to bring more electronic aspects to the healthcare system and show them how our knowledge engine can improve their systems,” Metcalfe says.
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