Patent ID: 8448077

Claim:
A computing system for executing an executable practice or professional guideline to receive practice or professional information or knowledge contained in the guideline at a proper level of abstraction to meet a context definition appropriate for a slated use of the practice or professional information or knowledge, the computing system comprising: a guideline repository which stores a plurality of the executable practice or professional guidelines and from which selected practice or professional guidelines are retrievable; at least one interface providing for entry of one of context data and a control signal defining a context of the practice or professional information or knowledge; a display; at least one server which receives said context data or control signal, automatically chooses one of the executable practice or professional guidelines stored in the guideline repository in accordance with the received context data, and causes the display to display the chosen guideline and to display a visual navigator, the visual navigator including a list identifying each of a plurality of available levels of guideline abstraction and an indicator which indicates with which of the available levels in the list the chosen guideline is displayed; and a user input device by which a user changes the displayed guideline resulting in a new guideline being displayed at a new level of abstraction and the visual navigator displaying the new level of abstraction, such that the level of abstraction is changeable by the user input in both a manual mode and an automatic mode.