TICoMS -- A Modular and Message-Based Framework for Monitoring and Control of Medical Devices

An important aspect of clinical work, especially in the intensive care unit (ICU) is the vigilant observation of patients' vital data on a various number of monitors and displays to allow for rapid decision-making which is often required in critical conditions. Most often, the presented data cannot be collected and used as a whole to aid the decision making by availability and comparison of all relevant data at once. In this paper, a novel approach for handling real-time clinical data is presented. We developed TICoMS (Tübinger ICU Control and Monitoring System), a framework for integration of sensors and effectors into a homogeneous message-based network capable of gathering and distributing real-time data in ICU settings from medical devices. The accumulated data can be presented on a central patient monitoring screen for a fast and extensive overview of the patient's current condition and trends with a homogenous time-base. Furthermore, this framework provides control capabilities for medical devices and is therefore an essential foundation for device interactions that may allow for computer-based support in decision-making or advanced automation in intensive care scenarios.