Computer program aids trauma care

The call comes in. A 25-year-old man is on his way in to the HUP emergency room. He is the victim of a drug-related gunfight with a bullet wound in his chest. The ambulance radios in his vital signs: slow heart beat, unconscious, barely detectable pulse. Doctors are harried in the chaotic emergency room, and need to figure out quickly how to treat their patient. Ten years ago, doctors would have discussed their alternatives. But through a program called TraumAID, doctors need only input a patient's condition into the computer, and instantly the treatment is written out for the doctors on the screen. "[TraumAID] recommends appropriate procedures to be carried out [in trauma centers]," according to an article written by its creators to appear in the Artificial Inteligence in Medicine journal next April. The original program was created eight years ago by a University professor, graduate student and a Medical College of Pennsylvania student and was updated to incorporate the advances in computer techonology. The new version allows the user to input more than one injury for a comprehensive diagnosis -- an important feature since many trauma victims have multiple wounds that need immediate treatment. "Version two was created because there was a need for flexibility," said MCP's John Clarke, one of its creators. "[The system] must be able to coordinate plans for multiple injuries." The group also programmed TraumAID to handle uncommon injuries that doctors at smaller trauma centers may not be familiar with. "[Certain] injuries might only be dealt with occasionally," Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science Bonnie Webber said. The system is able to diagnose 220 theoretical cases, but the program will soon include approximately 300 cases after the diagnoses are tested for accuracy according to experts standards. "We are doing a retrospective review," Clarke said. "[We must] validate the quality and usability of the advice." Penetrating injuries to the abdomen and chest are cases which are currently on-line. The expanded version of TraumAID will include additional areas of the torso. The program's creators stress, however, that the program is only to be used as an advisor and is not intended to replace doctors' intuition and knowledge. The system is continually being developed on two different computer systems. Students at the University and at Drexel University are involved with different aspects of the interface between the two systems.

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