VUCast (06/15/09) Salisbury, David F.
Researchers from Vanderbilt University's Medical Center and Institute for Software Integrated Systems have developed a real-time system for sepsis detection. In May, the system was tested in the medical center's intensive care unit, and this summer an automated decision support system will be added to help guide attending physicians through complex sepsis treatments. "This is an effort to use the power of informatics to move from reactive to proactive medical treatment by creating tools to support the use of evidence-based clinical guidelines," says Vanderbilt HealthTech Laboratory director Peter Miller, who is overseeing the project. Sepsis occurs when bacteria invade the body from wounds or intravenous lines, which over-stimulates the body's immune system and causes inflammatory and abnormal clotting responses. Sepsis can result in organ failure and death. The system features an automated early detection system that alerts doctors that a patient may be developing sepsis, based on temperature, heart rate, respiration rate, and white blood count. Creating the system involved developing a special modeling language specifically designed for clinical decision-making. Although the language is specific to sepsis management, the underlying technical infrastructure can be used to model almost any medical protocol, says Vanderbilt graduate student Janos Mathe.
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