Journal of clinical monitoring and computing
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J Clin Monit Comput · Aug 2007
Summative software evaluation of a therapeutic guideline assistance system for empiric antimicrobial therapy in ICU.
While developing the patient data management system ICUData in close cooperation with the software company (IMESO GmbH, Hüttenberg, Germany), a therapeutic guideline assistance system for empiric antimicrobial therapy in ICU (called "Antibiotic Wizard") could be introduced and integrated into the existing software. After its introduction into clinical routine, the first version was to be tested, checked for usability and compared to other software products with the help of the IsoMetrics(s) inventory (based on the EN ISO 9241-10 for computer-assisted workflows). ⋯ In generally, the usability of the "Antibiotic Wizard" was deemed good. Some weaknesses were found in the fields of "Error tolerance" and "Controllability". These problems will be corrected in future versions.
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J Clin Monit Comput · Aug 2007
Blood gas measurements using the Bayer Rapid Point 405: are we basing our decisions on accurate data?
Therapeutic decisions in the Operating Room (OR) are often made based solely upon results obtained from arterial blood gas machines. We evaluated how precise and accurate the results obtained from Bayer Rapid Point 405 (RP405) were vis-à-vis those of our blood gas laboratory and if they met the standards of the members of the anesthesia department. ⋯ Anesthesiologists must be confident that the information they receive is accurate in the context of rapidly changing clinical status. Our results show that the RP405 analyzers produce reliable measurements.
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J Clin Monit Comput · Aug 2007
Normality of upper and lower peripheral pulse transit time of normotensive and hypertensive children.
The ankle-brachial index (ABI) is known to be indicative of sub-clinical peripheral arterial diseases that are correlated with cardiovascular disease risk factors like atherosclerosis or ischemic extremity. Due to its occluding measurement nature, this may not be appealing to less cooperative patients when multiple prolonged screening is required. A simple and non-intrusive approach termed pulse transit time ratio (PTTR) has recently shown to be potential surrogate marker for the prolonged ABI measurement. Other studies have also suggested that subjects with hypertension have stiffer arterial wall and thereby can confound transit time related parameters. Thus, it becomes important to understand the PTTR normality and difference of hypertensive children when compared to those measured from normotensive children. ⋯ The findings herein suggest that stiffer arterial wall may have confounding effects on the derived transit time related measurements but it is limited on the PTTR parameter. Similar to the ABI approach, PTTR may be only confounded by abnormal local changes in either of the measured peripheral arterial wall. Hence, the PTTR technique shows promise to be an ABI marker from this perspective.
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J Clin Monit Comput · Jun 2007
Accuracy of a novel approach to measuring arterial thermodilution cardiac output during intra-aortic counterpulsation.
To assess the agreement between a novel approach of arterial and the pulmonary artery bolus thermodilution for measuring cardiac output in critically ill patients during aortic counterpulsation. ⋯ Agreement between BCO(iabp) and BCO(pulm) was satisfactory for CO values between 2.0 and 10 l/min only without aortic counterpulsation. BCO(iabp) CO measurements during aortic counterpulsation after coronary artery bypass grafting cannot be recommended at the present time.