An Ontology-based Expert System for Decision Support in Cardiac Intensive Care Environments

When a patient enters a cardiac intensive care unit (CICU), either after heart surgery or due to a serious coronary disorder, he/she requires comprehensive care and constant monitoring to achieve a stable physiological state as soon as possible. Medical experts at CICUs usually have to make complex decisions in a short period of time, which frequently imply modifications on the dosage of drugs being supplied. Life of patients at CICUs depends largely on the wisdom of such decisions. However, mainly due to emotional stress and fatigue, experts sometimes make mistakes that lead to incorrect or inaccurate actions. This work presents an expert system based on a domain ontology that acquires the patient parameters from the patient monitor, analyzes them and provides the expert with a recommendation regarding the treatment that should be administered. If the expert agrees, the system modifies the drug infusion rates being supplied at the infusion pumps in order to improve the patient's physiological status.