A knowledge based alarmer for the postoperative care of cardiac patients

The prototype of an intelligent alarmer for the postoperative monitoring of cardiac surgery patients was tested on ten patients immediately after the operation. The alarmer had been executed on two PC/ATs and programmed to notify of four pathological states: hypovolemic state, hyperdynamic state, left ventricular failure or hypoventilatory state. Fourteen of the 32 alarms given during 37.2 hours of monitoring were considered correct. The observed sensitivity of 100% and the specificities of 67% for alarms and of 38% for alerts warrant further development of the technique.