Publets: clinical judgement on the web

The Internet is now a major channel for publishing medical research data and documents, including clinical practice guidelines. It is now possible to capture guidelines in a computer interpretable form opening up the capability of using the internet (and intra/extranets etc.) to deliver patient-specific advice and other services. A development lifecycle and technology for publishing and delivering services at the point of care ("publets") are described. As with all new technologies, however, these new methods entail risks as well as opportunities. The paper closes with a discussion of quality requirements and an argument that publets should include a safety case as an integral part of their content.