A situational approach to the design of a patient-oriented disease-specific knowledge base.

We have developed a situational approach to the organization of disease-specific information that seeks to provide patients with targeted access to content in a knowledge base. Our approach focuses on dividing a defined knowledge base into sections corresponding to discrete clinical events associated with the evaluation and treatment of a specific disorder. Common reasons for subspecialty referral are used to generate situational statements that serve as entry points into the knowledge base. Each section includes defining questions generated using keywords associated with specific topics. Defining questions are linked to patient-focused answers. Evaluation of a thyroid cancer web site designed using this approach has identified high ratings for usability, relevance, and comprehension of retrieved information. This approach may be particularly useful in the development of resources for newly diagnosed patients.