Developing an Evidence-Based Clinical Decision-Support System to Enhance Prosthetic Prescription

With the rapid increase in the global amputee population, there is a clear need to assist amputee care providers with their decision-making during the prosthetic prescription process. To achieve this, an evidence-based decision support system that encompasses existing literature, current decision-making strategies employed by amputee care providers and patient-specific factors is proposed. Based on an extensive literature review combined with natural language processing and expert survey, the factors influencing the current decision-making of amputee care providers in prosthetic prescription were identified. Following that, the decision-making strategies employed by expert and novice prosthetists were captured and analyzed. Finally, a fundamental understanding of the effect gait analysis has on the decision-making strategies of prosthetists was studied. Findings from this work lay the foundation for developing a real-time decision support system integrated with a portable gait analysis tool to enhance prescription processes. This is critical in the low-income countries where there is a scarcity of amputee care providers and resources for an appropriate prescription.