A MONITORING system that lets doctors take in many of a patient鈥檚 vital signs
at a glance is being developed at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center
in Philadelphia.
The new system collects and analyses information such as heart rate, blood
pressure and oxygen levels from a number of different sensors, and displays it
as a three-dimensional image. 鈥淎 lot of information is already available
electronically. This is a way to get the information at a glance,鈥� says William
Hanson, an anaesthetist leading the team.
At the moment, doctors have to look at separate monitors to get all this
information and then correlate it mentally. Instead, Hanson is routing all
information through a single computer program and displaying it as a 3D chart
for periods ranging from an hour to a week.
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He is also using artificial intelligence techniques to make diagnosis easier.
In one study, Hanson鈥檚 team collected data on the pulmonary artery occlusion
pressure, heart rate and cardiac output of 10 patients. By using neural network
software, the program was able to learn the best combination of these factors
for individual patients and alert doctors if the indicators moved too far from
the ideal.
Hanson has also designed a 鈥渟mart鈥� intravenous pump: if blood pressure gets
too low, the program could trigger the pump to inject fluid into the patient.
The system could even be used to automatically administer drugs in an emergency.