Enhancing E-Health Information Systems with Agent Technology

Table 2

Tasks performed by agent categories.

Agent categories	Tasks
Physician agent	Receives notification of test results availability from the lab personnel agents.
	Receives alerts of unread available test results from the alert manager agent.
	Notifies the physician that test results are available.
	Queries the integration agent for test results according to search criteria determined by the physician.
	Receives test results data from the integration agent.
	Displays test results data to the physician.
	Informs the alert manager agent about the read/unread status of the test results sent to the physician.
	Informs the audit agent before and after each action.
Lab personnel agent	Notifies the alert manager agent that test results are available.
	Notifies the physician agents that results are available.
	Informs the audit agent before and after each action.
Lab director agent	Receives alerts from the alert manager agent signaling the abnormal unread status of a test result.
	Reports alert to the lab director.
	Acknowledges the alert manager agent that the lab director read the alert sent to him.
	Informs the audit agent before and after each action.
Alert manager agent	Alerts the lab director agent as soon and as the abnormal unread status of a given test result is detected.
	Receives test results from the lab personnel agent.
	Receives from the physician agent the status “test results have been read by physician.”
	Receives from the lab director agent the status “alert message has been acknowledged by the lab director.”
	Informs the audit agent before and after every action.
Integration agent	Retrieves test results from cLIS, based on the query issued by the physician agent or the lab director agent.
	Delivers extracted test results to the requester agent.
	Informs the audit agent before and after every action.
Audit agent	Receives the actual action start/end notifications and log them with their date and time.