Judith Piggins

The capturing of more detailed medical information in costar

A heavy reliance on the use of narrative text to record information in the COSTAR (COmPuter STored Pmbulatory Record) medical record has made automated analysis of the data difficult. Front-end microprocessors and new data capturing mechanisms have made it possible to develop methods which facilitate entry of medical data in codable form. A prototype of such a system developed at the Laboratory of Computer Science is described here.

Computer Assisted Respiratory Management for the Critically Ill

Current technological advances are causing major improvements in respiratory care for the critically ill. Respiratory monitoring has developed slowly due to the lack of suitable hardware to measure pressure, flow, volume, and gas concentrations. Now increasing numbers of respiratory parameters are becoming easily available. Various techniques and equipment are employed throughout the world as hospitals reach different levels of sophistication. In some institutions ventilation management decisions are made strictly on the basis of blood gas analysis results and clinical observations. In other institutions more complex measurements are recorded and various calculations performed. The complexity of respiratory care for the critically ill patient necessitates a systematic approach to recording and organizing data. The diversity in respiratory care requires a flexibility enabling individual installations to tailor any specific form of respiratory methodology to their own needs.