System design for simultaneous data acquisition from patient monitor and syringe pumps in intensive care unit

The automation of tasks in an intensive care unit can be beneficial for the patient´s recovery and also can reduce the workload of the physicians. That is why research is looking for different tasks, which can be performed by automated machines. One specific project, our group is working on, is the automation of blood pressure regulation with drugs for patients task of the physicians, knowledge has to be gathered about, how the physicians decide on according treatment actions. As this is an everyday task, the easiest way to analyze and understand the treatment decisions is to look at taken decisions in actual patients. For this purpose a system has been set up, which can be connected to both the patient monitor and the syringe pumps, which infuse the different drugs. There were different requirements from the technical, medical point of view and also from an ethic committee, which had to be taken into account. Given those requirements hardware was chosen and suitable software was implemented. First tests showed, that the system can be operated in the intensive care unit and provide data for further research.