Correct diagnosis of chest pain by an integrated expert system

ECG computerized analysis nowadays needs homogeneous standardized reading protocol to provide clinicians reliable diagnostic and prognostic help and allow communication between different cardiological hosts and between cardiological intensive care units, homes, ambulances or peripheral medical emergency structures. SCP protocol of the OEDIPE project solved many of these problems. In the past few years the authors have developed a prototype expert system called ERIC for diagnostic and prognostic use in patients with chest pain so as to overcome many intrinsic limitations of ECG. The system utilizes for these purposes not only ECG analysis according to SCP-protocol criteria, but also chest pain characteristics analysis and risk profile estimation. Thanks to this data integration, the system is more accurate than ECG alone in the diagnosis of chest pain in both normal and diseased patients