The overall goal of this research is to develop new display software for visualizing complex, time-oriented clinical data. Phase I, carried out in collaboration with the Developmental Epidemiology Network, focused on a large database of intervention and response measurements from pre-term newborns in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Major accomplishments in Phase I were to identify the requirements for effective visualization of this data, and to prototype an approach and a set of specific display techniques to meet these requirements. A key insight during Phase I was that similar visualization capabilities are applicable to patient monitoring and patient care as well as to clinical and epidemiological research. Phase II will extend our collaboration to include physicians associated with the management and automation of ICU's in hospitals in the Boston area. The goal will be the prototype implementation of 'ClinScope', an innovative object-oriented software system that embodies intelligent graphical presentation techniques for time-oriented data to help with both clinical data exploration and medical decision support. The major health-related contribution of ClinScope is to enhance the ability of the physician to gain insight from the ever-increasing volumes of recorded measurements.
The proposed software to visualize time-oriented clinical data has direct application to clinical decision support, to clinical trials and studies, and to the scientific management of critical care facilities. The founders of Belmont Research Inc. have extensive experience in the development and international distribution of software to support clinical applications.
