"Smart" Intensive Care Unit Boosts Efficiency.

• Position: Developed at the University of Pennsylvania, using two artificial intelligence networks - Brief Article

Anesthesiologists at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, have developed the prototype for a "smart" intensive care unit that automates key aspects of patient care. The system could function in the ICU as a "skilled assistant," monitoring a patient's vital signs, spotting and remedying potentially dangerous deviations from his or her "ideal" heart rate, blood pressure, and blood flow, anesthesiologist C. William Hanson III predicts. By taking on much of this demanding job, the system would significantly decrease hospital costs by freeing clinicians to care safely for more patients at one time in the ICU and thus would enable an ICU nurse to care for three or four patients, rather than one or two.

The system uses two types of artificial intelligence: a neural network and a fuzzy logic controller. The neural network learns in the same manner as the human brain. As the network interacts with data, it is reinforced for good performance and "punished" for poor performance. The smart ICU's neural network can quickly learn the ideal health status for a given patient.

The fuzzy logic controller is a smart pump that...