A context aware system for generation and propagation of automated alerts from an intensive care unit

Generation and propagation of automatic alerts from a Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) is a non-trivial problem. Inability to generate an alert in a genuine case is considered as a more serious shortcoming than generating false alerts. Due to this, medical instruments and HIMS systems tend to generate large number of false alerts. This reduces the credibility of the alert system and stake holders learn to ignore them, undermining the very purpose of the alert system. There is a need to develop a more comprehensive system that holistically looks at all available information about the situation before generating an alert. Towards this, it should continuously monitor all vital signals available and evaluate the cross functional effects between them before arriving at the seriousness of the conditions leading to alerts. Configurability is another important requirement of such a system. The concerned unit chief or the doctor designated by him should be able to configure and set up the system for alert generation, for each patient. This calls for an easily understood human machine interface for the configuration manager. The alert delivery system should use a mode of delivery based on the current context of the recipient. This is possible only in case the system is able to continuously evaluate the context of all recipients served by it. Fortunately, the smart phone provides us such a possibility. We are currently implementing a Tablet PC based system for automation of the workflows in an ICU. This system can be easily ported to accommodate the smart phones using GPRS network. This paper presents the working of the alert generation and alert delivery system under development.