Pervasive Tracking for Time-Dependent Acute Patient Flow: A Case Study in Trauma Management

The problem of tracking has gained a central role in healthcare research since it enables the acquisition of the information needed for improving healthcare management and efficiency, alongside patient safety. In literature, it is mainly discussed as an allocation problem that must deal with limited resources (rooms, physicians, equipment) to optimise workflows, and Real-Time Location Systems have been introduced with the main goal of locating and identifying assets and personnel in a healthcare facility. In this paper, we propose a novel perspective of pervasive tracking into Hospital 4.0, devised explicitly for time-dependent acute patient flow. The goal is to develop a tracking system that acquires not only the time and location of entities, exploiting state-of-the-art techniques, but also the main clinical events occurred. As an example application we describe TraumaTracker, a system developed to support the accurate and complete documentation of trauma resuscitation processes from pre-hospital care

Real-time tracking and documentation in trauma management

In trauma resuscitation, an accurate documentation is crucial to improve the quality of trauma care. Hospital emergency departments typically adopt handwritten paper records and flow sheets for acquiring data, which are often inaccurate. In this article, we describe TraumaTracker, a computer-based system for trauma tracking and documentation. Results demonstrate that completeness and accuracy of trauma documentation significantly improved using TraumaTracker, since it enables to add data and information that were not recorded in paper documentation \u2013 especially precise times and locations of events

BDI personal medical assistant agents: The case of trauma tracking and alerting

Personal assistant agents can have an important role in healthcare as a smart technology to support physicians in their daily work, helping to tackle the increasing complexity of their task environment. In this paper we present and discuss a personal medical assistant agent technology for trauma documentation and management, based on the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) architecture. The purpose of the personal assistant agent is twofold: to assist the Trauma Team in doing precision tracking during a trauma resuscitation, so as to (automatically) produce an accurate documentation of the trauma, and to generate alerts at real-time, to be eventually displayed either on smart-glasses or room-display

Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta in trauma: a systematic review of the literature

Abstract Aims Resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta has been a hot topic in trauma resuscitation during these last years. The aims of this systematic review are to analyze when, how, and where this technique is performed and to evaluate preliminary results. Methods The literature search was performed on online databases in December 2016, without time limits. Studies citing endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta in trauma were retrieved for evaluation. Results Sixty-one articles met the inclusion criteria and were selected for the systematic review. Overall, they included 1355 treated with aortic endovascular balloon occlusion, and 883 (65%) patients died after the procedure. In most of the included cases, a shock state seemed to be present before the procedure. Time of death and inflation site was not described in the majority of included studies. Procedure-related and shock-related complications are described. Introducer sheath size and comorbidity seems to play the role of risk factors. Conclusions Resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta is increasingly used in trauma victim resuscitation all over the world, to elevate blood pressure and limit fluid infusion, while other procedures aimed to stop the bleeding are performed. High mortality rate is probably due to the severity of the injuries. Time and place of balloon insertion, zone of balloon inflation, and inflation cutoff time are very heterogeneous