786 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 41 Knowledge-Based Support of Medical Work in Home Care ABSTRACT Healthcare applications involve complex structures of interacting processes and professionals that need to exchange information to provide the care services. In this kind of system, many diferent professional competencies, ethical and sensibility requirements, as well as legal frameworks coexist, and because of that, the information managed inside the system should not be freely accessed. On the contrary, it must be subject to very complex privacy restrictions. In the chapter, the authors describe a case study of a knowledge-based distributed system, the fundamental issues that must be considered in design of a distributed healthcare application. The K4CARE system is an example of an application to the medical domain of homecare assistance. Homecare involves professionals from diferent institutions (hospital, social workers, etc.) that must interact around any particular patient, and which used to be located in diferent physical places having their own and independent information systems. INTRODUCTION Medical environments use to involve high complex structures of interacting processes and profession- als where a high quantity of information is man- aged and exchanged. In addition, all healthcare environments can be considered distributed. The services usually involve professionals from dif- ferent institutions (hospital, social work organiza- tions, etc.) structurally independent, which must interact around any particular patient, and which usually are located in different physical places having their own and independent information Lenka Lhotska Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic Jaromir Dolezal Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic Branislav Bosansky Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-3990-4.ch041