Affiliations: [a] Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA | [b] Center for Social Gerontology, Ann Arbor, MI, USA | [c] Healthways Foundation, Iselin, NJ, USA
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: A.R. Heminger, Decision and Information Systems Department, School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
Abstract: The use of expert systems offers the promise of a way to address longstanding problems with the process of adjudicating guardianship for adults in the United States. The process of adjudicating these requests has been marked by a long history of paternalism and precipitousness. Frequently, the court's response has been that guardianship would not be requested if it were not necessary, thus the tendency has been to automatically approve such requests. Further, guardianship has generally been treated as an all or nothing type of decision. The result has often been the inappropriate and unjust removal of basic personal freedoms from adult citizens; the very freedoms that adults take for granted. Two recent trends that have tried to address this issue are the use of partial guardianships to limit the infringement of personal freedoms, and the use of functional assessments to determine the specific needs of the individual involved. However, the functional assessments can be no better than the expertise brought to bear in their creation. Frequently, those tasked with making functional assessments do not possess the necessary expertise to do it properly. This is particularly true in smaller jurisdictions where there are not a lot of assessments being done. Even in larger jurisdictions, there can be a large variance between individual functional assessments. These twin needs of available expertise and consistent application of available laws to similar situations are just the type of problems that expert systems are designed to meet. This papers examines the issues raised by consideration of such a system and advocates that a prototype of such a system be developed to demonstrate its value, and to identify its strengths and weaknesses.
