A portable and simple microcomputer system for quantitative assessment of cardiovascular therapy in critical patients

The authors describe a portable system that can record electrical and hemodynamic signals and provide accurate information on trend parameters to control treatment in intensive-care units (ICUs). The hardware is a PC-XT-compatible computer with 640 kbytes, equipped with an A/D converter. The software is implemented in Pascal and assembly languages and consists of configuration, acquisition, and analysis modules. Patients with severe congestive heart failure are studied before and after drug administration. The electrocardiogram, pressure values (right atrium, pulmonary artery, femoral artery), first-derivative impedance wave, and cardiac output are obtained. The data are continuously sampled and stored. The system allows a bedside quantitative analysis of the effects of drugs on cardiovascular function and improves the monitoring of critical patients in the ICU