research-article

POP-PL: a patient-oriented prescription programming language

Authors:

Spencer P. Florence,

Bruke Fetscher,

William H. Temps,

Tina Kiguradze,

Dennis P. West,

Charlotte Niznik,

Paul R. Yarnold,

Robert Bruce Findler,

Steven M. BelknapAuthors Info & Claims

GPCE 2015: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences

Pages 131 - 140

https://doi.org/10.1145/2814204.2814221

Published: 26 October 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Medical professionals have long used algorithmic thinking to describe and implement health care processes without the benefit of the conceptual framework provided by a programming language. Instead, medical algorithms are expressed using English, flowcharts, or data tables. This results in prescriptions that are difficult to understand, hard to debug, and awkward to reuse. This paper reports on the design and evaluation of a domain-specific programming language, POP-PL for expressing medical algorithms. The design draws on the experience of researchers in two disciplines, programming languages and medicine. The language is based around the idea that programs and humans have complementary strengths, that when combined can make for safer, more accurate performance of prescriptions. We implemented a prototype of our language and evaluated its design by writing prescriptions in the new language and administering a usability survey to medical professionals. This formative evaluation suggests that medical prescriptions can be conveyed by a programming language's mode of expression and provides useful information for refining the language. Analysis of the survey results suggests that medical professionals can understand and correctly modify programs in POP-PL.

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Cited By

Florence SYou STov JFindler R(2019)A calculus for Esterel: if can, can. if no can, no can.Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/32903743:POPL(1-29)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290374
Voelter MKolb BBirken KTomassetti FAlff PWiart LWortmann ANordmann A(2019)Using language workbenches and domain-specific languages for safety-critical software developmentSoftware and Systems Modeling (SoSyM)10.1007/s10270-018-0679-018:4(2507-2530)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10270-018-0679-0
Li XFlatt MCombemale BMernik MRumpe B(2017)Debugging with domain-specific events via macrosProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3136014.3136019(91-102)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136014.3136019
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

POP-PL: a patient-oriented prescription programming language
1. Applied computing
  1. Life and medical sciences
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language types

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cover image ACM Conferences

GPCE 2015: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences

October 2015

184 pages

ISBN:9781450336871

DOI:10.1145/2814204

General Chair:
Christian Kästner
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
,
Program Chair:
Anirüddhā Gokhālé
Vanderbilt University, USA

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 51, Issue 3
GPCE '15
March 2016
184 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2936314
Editor:
Andy Gill
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 26 October 2015

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GPCE'15: Generative Programming: Concepts and Experiences

October 26 - 27, 2015

PA, Pittsburgh, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 56 of 180 submissions, 31%

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Cited By

Florence SYou STov JFindler R(2019)A calculus for Esterel: if can, can. if no can, no can.Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/32903743:POPL(1-29)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290374
Voelter MKolb BBirken KTomassetti FAlff PWiart LWortmann ANordmann A(2019)Using language workbenches and domain-specific languages for safety-critical software developmentSoftware and Systems Modeling (SoSyM)10.1007/s10270-018-0679-018:4(2507-2530)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10270-018-0679-0
Li XFlatt MCombemale BMernik MRumpe B(2017)Debugging with domain-specific events via macrosProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3136014.3136019(91-102)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136014.3136019
St-Amour VFeltey DFlorence SYou SFindler R(2017)Herbarium Racketensis: a stroll through the woods (functional pearl)Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/31102451:ICFP(1-15)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3110245
Voelter MKoščejev SRiedel MDeitsch AHinkelmann A(2021)A Domain-Specific Language for Payroll Calculations: An Experience Report from DATEVDomain-Specific Languages in Practice10.1007/978-3-030-73758-0_4(93-130)Online publication date: 15-Apr-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73758-0_4
Osial PKauranen KKim A(2019)Prescriptive Grammar for Clinical Prescribing WorkflowInternational Journal of Extreme Automation and Connectivity in Healthcare10.4018/IJEACH.20190101091:1(96-110)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.4018/IJEACH.2019010109
Voelter MKolb BBirken KTomassetti FAlff PWiart LWortmann ANordmann A(2019)Using language workbenches and domain-specific languages for safety-critical software developmentSoftware and Systems Modeling (SoSyM)10.1007/s10270-018-0679-018:4(2507-2530)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10270-018-0679-0

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