The Digital Patient Model and Model Guided Therapy

Abstract

One of the goals of this book is to provide a roadmap for the development of information technology (IT) tools to facilitate Predictive, Preventive, and Personalized Medicine (PPPM). Our approach to the management of medical information is based on model theory that has arisen from a conceptual transformation from image-guided patient management to a model-centric world-view or model-guided patient management. This approach seeks to implement a comprehensive form of Model-Guided Therapy (MGT) through the use of a Therapy Imaging and Model Management System (TIMMS), and its application as a decision support system for achieving MGT. It is our hypothesis that if we can utilize patient-specific modeling techniques to generate valid Digital Patient Models (DPMs) we may be able to develop a statistically valid methodology for predicting diseases and treatment outcomes, preventing diseases or complications, and developing personalized treatment regimens. We are calling this proposed system Model-Based Medical Evidence (MBME) and are engaged in its development. It is further postulated that Multi-Entity Bayesian Networks (MEBN) used in the construction of the DPM will be utilized in the development of a practical decision support system.