Recommender Systems in Healthcare

Abstract

In this chapter the appropriateness of any recommender system in healthcare, which lies in its ability to provide capabilities for meeting the challenges of modern care giving, is examined. The impacts of over two decades of research in and implementation of recommender systems in healthcare are extensively examined in two consecutive periods: first to examine empirical results and practical implementations while the second focuses on validating the earlier findings and justifying the propositions made. Although the result indicates an optimistic progress and upward trend in both the research and implementation, there are compelling reasons to invest more efforts at harmonizing evaluation criteria and metrics. In addition, in order to appropriately, adequately, and effectively meet the challenges of modern care, the rapidly evolving trends, and changing technologies, a novel solution with potential for these capabilities is proposed: a solution to provide real-time recommendations and make them available for sharing among stakeholders in real time.