Filtering The technical issues associated with developing and managing the BJC Health System are representative of a challenging class of research problems for managing the high volume of events throughout a complex organization. Primary among these challenges is the need to automate mechanisms for monitoring, classifying, and coordinating events to increase the availability and accessibility of personnel. Given the broad scope and geographical separation of BJC facilities, the distributed information system must provide flexible and scalable systemwide support for event-based notification to ensure key human resources are deployed effectively. In a health care delivery system, the speed and appropriateness of decision making is critical. Furthermore, in a large-scale distributed health system, the large number of personnel render traditional mechanisms for event flow management ineffective.
Filters are reactive objects that monitor and classify event flow within a distributed system.
Agents and filters are well suited for conveying information to doctors, staff, and patients in a timely manner, as well as attracting attention to unexpected circumstances that must be handled immediately. Many tasks that are performed manually in the current BJC information system can be offloaded to agents and filters. Filters are designed to reduce the volume of traffic required to monitor, classify, and deliver events to consumers. These agents can be configured to perform various services such as monitoring for quality problems involving the misuse of narcotics or antibiotics, navigating digital libraries to locate relevant literature. In addition, personal agents may perform tasks on behalf of end users such as scheduling and planning activities.