DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPUTERIZED EXPERT DIAGNOSIS SYSTEM

Thesis Overview

INTRODUCTION:
This chapter gives an overview about the aim, objectives, background and operation environment of the system.1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Health care facility should be accessible by all at all times. But some of the people that should access these facilities are far removed from these facilities. More so, in the few available facilities, qualified medical personnel are always key issues that need urgent redress.  
In view of the foregoing, it would be of great necessity to provide a computerized system that will provide a complementary medical service, such as medical disease diagnosis in places where accessibility is a problem as well as health care facilities where qualified experts are lacking, hence this topic, Expert System or electronic diagnosis system on some medical illness and disease.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS
Disease diagnosis and treatment constitute the major work of physicians. Some of the time, diagnosis is wrongly done leading to error in drug prescription and further complications in the patient’s health. It has also been noticed that much time is spent in physical examination and interview of patients before treatment commences. The clinical decision support system (CDSS) shall address these problems by effectively providing quality diagnosis in real-time1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The major objective of this work is to develop an expert system on diagnosis of non-communicable diseases.  
It also targets towards contributing to academic research work.
• To develop modern interactive diagnostic software that will aid clinicians in diagnostic procedures.
• To offer prescription of medication.
• To enable flexibility in access to information through the World Wide Web or comprehensive knowledge bases.
• It is also to ascertain whether the diseases could be diagnosed based on signs and symptoms.
• It will also examine a patient based on simple clinical signs, and to improve family and community health 1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
If this prototype is fully developed will be very useful in many areas such as:
a.       It will help to retain the skill of an expert medical doctor in case of any eventuality;
b.       It can support academic development;
c.       It can be useful in many hospitals, both private and government, cases where the expert is not on seat;
d.       It can also be used in the laboratory for quick research work.1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY1.9 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of this work will include the following
1.       A dynamic database system that can act as knowledge based system
2.       A complete model of an expert system to portray sample troubleshooter
3.       Explore the power of visual basic in data handling
4.       To implement a dynamic search system 1.8Â Â Â Â Â Â  ASSUMPTION OF THE STUDY
During the process of data collection, information relating to Electronic diagnosisSystem was obtained from the internet and the library. Hence, it is assumed that all the data collected are correct and contains no false information.1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS