A system for long-distance monitoring and control of ICU patients treatment

The main objective of an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is the stabilization of patients who are in critical condition. To achieve this goal, medical specialists monitor a patient's vital signs using a variety of sensors, and, based on measured values of the vital signs, decide on courses of action which generally include administering various medications. The majority of these pharmaceuticals are administered through pumps that are placed at the foot of the patient's bed and, as the drugs are administered, the physician in charge of the patient continues to constantly monitor the effects of the drugs on the patient's vital signs. In this paper, we present a software architecture, MPC (Medical Parameters Control), that allows the attending medical personnel to acquire the required patient information in order to continuously assess his/her condition. This architecture consists of an acquisition subsystem that obtains the pertinent data; a second subsystem, located at the foot of the patient's bed, that controls the pumps that inject the prescribed medications; and a third subsystem designed to remotely process the flow of information as well as to make the necessary adjustments in drug delivery. This new software architecture also takes advantage of the existing infrastructural and communications mechanisms already in place in the medical centers and hospitals, as the information is submitted to a central system that intelligently the patient's data while also making the entire flow of information and the patient's data and status available to medical personnel through mobile communications systems and a private hospital network. In addition, the system provides an inter-face designed through usability principles and which directly involved the users (medical specialists). The interface enables the users to visualize and analyze all the pertinent data and information in a unified environment, thereby helping the medical specialists to dynamically assess the patient's condition remotely (without having to be physically in the ICU), such that the specialist can redirect or change the course of action. The efficient and easy-to-use interface thus permits a quick, efficient, and dynamic assessment of the patient and the medical decision-making process.