Pre-Hospital Trauma Data Collection and Mining

Traumatic injury is a major public health and military problem. What physiological changes occur to trauma patients after injury, during transport and as a result of field interventions remains largely unknown. The proposal objectives are; #1 Refine the reliability and usability of Phase I prototype of the Vital Signs Data Recorder (VSDR) which captures vital signs waveform data automatically and allows marking of field interventions. The Phase I prototype will be a) ruggedized, and miniaturized, b) fitted with universal patient monitor interfaces, c) have data storage format developed for rapid documentation and systematic evaluation of transport events. #2 Implement a vital signs (VS) signal processing algorithm in the VSDR system for automatic waveform data quality categorization and event identification that will allow large amounts of VS data to be rapidly processed through the algorithm and highlight potential data quality problems, noise in data and targeted patient conditions. #3 Develop visualization software for remote patient monitoring and battle-field telemedicine applications to allow real-time identification of life-threatening patient conditions. Such a VSDR system would have commercial applications in military and civilian transport, interface with the sensor-filled future battledress, allow improved field decision making and bench marking of pre-hospital care.