The anesthesiologist records observations and events by hand during the course of an operation. Two types of information are being recorded. The first type (Type I) involves comments from direct observation of the patient and comments about direct patient intervention such as drug entries. The second type (Type II) involves indirect observation of the patient via various monitors and transducers. Our proposal focuses directly on the development of a device for automatic recording of Type II information, thus relieving the taxing burden of hand-recording these data. This device will be unobtrusive to the anesthesiologist -- he or she will simply insert the handwritten record of Type I information and the Type II information will be automatically recorded on the back of the record or on a separate sheet at the end of the operation. The features are: (1) It will combine handwritten and automatic records in an efficient and acceptable manner that is compatible with conventional methods of keeping records. (2) It will interface with existing and future monitors. As new monitors become available they can be incorporated into the system simply by changing a memory module. This update can be performed by the user in the field with minimal effort. It will interface with the Marquest Anesthetic Gas Monitor to be marketed in the fall of 1984 and the Masstron mass spectrometer-based monitoring system to be marketed in 1986. (3) It will be readily adaptable to incorporating a speech-recognition system for recording Type I information when this technology becomes practical and cost-effective. (4) A serial port will be available for down-loading the collected record to other computers and mass storage devices.
