News & Analysis
Aviation safety to benefit heart patients
Anne-Francoise Pele
8/9/2012 10:53 AM EDT
PARIS – Aviation safety systems can be used to help prevent complications after surgery. UK researchers said they are developing a real-time patient monitoring and risk prediction system similar to those used by pilots to monitor the safety of their aircraft.
A team of researchers from the Academic Surgery Unit at University Hospital of South Manchester is collaborating with Lancaster University to develop a real-time patient monitoring and risk prediction system for use in operating theaters and intensive care units.
Among other benefits, researchers outlined the real-time analysis and prediction of multiple physiological parameters and the ability to change parameters ranges and alert thresholds for individual patients. The system also gives the ability to incorporate multiple clinical predictions.
“There are a lot of parallels between flying an aircraft and observing a critically ill patient. Both the surgeon and the pilot are dealing with a lot of information coming from a variety of sensors. They both need to know not only what is happening now but what might happen in the future and safety is absolutely critical," commented Lancaster University Aviation Security expert Professor Garik Makarian.
He added: “During a flight a pilot has to make decisions based on complex information coming from up to 1,000 sensors in the plane. He or she needs to know, not only what is happening to the aircraft right at this moment, but what is likely to happen in the future."
Pursuing the parallel between aviation and health, Makarian explained that, when a patient is critically ill or recovering from surgery, doctors monitor the patient’s blood pressure, temperature, pulse and other vital signs very closely but have to rely on their experience to predict what is likely to happen next. Pilots have the additional benefit of tools to help them do that.
The system under development has the potential to give doctors an extra layer of intelligence to draw upon, Makarian claimed.
In a discussion with EETimes, Prof. Makarian indicated that the system is a software package which could be integrated with more or less any existing system in the hospital environment.
The current model uses four patient physiological measurements: Systolic blood pressure (SBP), heart rate (HR), respiration rate (RR), and peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2). It calculates IRIS score real-time, predicts individual physiological measurements and predicts IRIS score, researchers said.
He specified that the research team has just completed feasibility study and proof-of-concept, which provided promising results. "We are now in the process of putting applications for research funding."
Prof. Makarian continued: "We already have a prototype which we are using for testing and verification on the existing data base. We are waiting for ethical clearance from the hospital in order to go for real trials."
Once the system is up and running, researchers said they expect it will find applications in various healthcare settings.
------------------------
If you found this article to be of interest, visit Medical Designline where you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of clean technologies. And, to register to our weekly newsletter, click here.
A team of researchers from the Academic Surgery Unit at University Hospital of South Manchester is collaborating with Lancaster University to develop a real-time patient monitoring and risk prediction system for use in operating theaters and intensive care units.
Among other benefits, researchers outlined the real-time analysis and prediction of multiple physiological parameters and the ability to change parameters ranges and alert thresholds for individual patients. The system also gives the ability to incorporate multiple clinical predictions.
“There are a lot of parallels between flying an aircraft and observing a critically ill patient. Both the surgeon and the pilot are dealing with a lot of information coming from a variety of sensors. They both need to know not only what is happening now but what might happen in the future and safety is absolutely critical," commented Lancaster University Aviation Security expert Professor Garik Makarian.
He added: “During a flight a pilot has to make decisions based on complex information coming from up to 1,000 sensors in the plane. He or she needs to know, not only what is happening to the aircraft right at this moment, but what is likely to happen in the future."
Pursuing the parallel between aviation and health, Makarian explained that, when a patient is critically ill or recovering from surgery, doctors monitor the patient’s blood pressure, temperature, pulse and other vital signs very closely but have to rely on their experience to predict what is likely to happen next. Pilots have the additional benefit of tools to help them do that.
The system under development has the potential to give doctors an extra layer of intelligence to draw upon, Makarian claimed.
In a discussion with EETimes, Prof. Makarian indicated that the system is a software package which could be integrated with more or less any existing system in the hospital environment.
The current model uses four patient physiological measurements: Systolic blood pressure (SBP), heart rate (HR), respiration rate (RR), and peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2). It calculates IRIS score real-time, predicts individual physiological measurements and predicts IRIS score, researchers said.
He specified that the research team has just completed feasibility study and proof-of-concept, which provided promising results. "We are now in the process of putting applications for research funding."
Prof. Makarian continued: "We already have a prototype which we are using for testing and verification on the existing data base. We are waiting for ethical clearance from the hospital in order to go for real trials."
Once the system is up and running, researchers said they expect it will find applications in various healthcare settings.
------------------------
If you found this article to be of interest, visit Medical Designline where you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of clean technologies. And, to register to our weekly newsletter, click here.
|
|
|
|
|
Navigate to related information
Sanjib.Acharya
8/9/2012 2:02 PM EDT
Hope to see many more such examples of sharing technological best practices across domains for good reasons.
So, is a doctor's job going to get easier with this tool as it is easier for a pilots to fly the plane equipped with the modern, sophisticated auto-pilot?
Sign in to Reply
DrQuine
8/22/2012 12:39 AM EDT
The first thing to do is to create an intuitive data interface ("dashboard"). We can all glance at the dashboard of our car and immediately recognize any system failures, our speed, and so forth. The medical data display should be at least as intuitive. I don't believe the end product will be a set of graphs. Perhaps it would be a human outline with a danger signal superimposed over the organ system that is failing. Or perhaps the organs would be "grayed out" when normal and "highlighted" when they were in an abnormal condition.
Sign in to Reply