TICoMS -- A Modular and Message-Based Framework for Monitoring and Control of Medical Devices

An important aspect of clinical work, especially in the intensive care unit (ICU) is the vigilant observation of patients´ vital data on a various number of monitors and displays to allow for rapid decision-making which is often required in critical conditions. Most often, the presented data cannot be collected and used as a whole to aid the decision making by availability and comparison of all relevant data at once. In this paper, a novel approach for handling real-time clinical data is presented. We developed TICoMS (Tübinger ICU Control and Monitoring System), a framework for integration of sensors and effectors into a homogeneous message-based network capable of gathering and distributing real-time data in ICU settings from medical devices. The accumulated data can be presented on a central patient monitoring screen for a fast and extensive overview of the patient´s current condition and trends with a homogenous time-base. Furthermore, this framework provides control capabilities for medical devices and is therefore an essential foundation for device interactions that may allow for computer-based support in decision-making or advanced automation in intensive care scenarios.