Sterling Point Research (SPR), in collaboration with Children's Hospital Boston (CHB), is proposing to develop a System for Targeted Estimation of Physiologic States (STEPS) that will enable the use of Standardized Clinical Assessment and Management Plans (SCAMPs) in the Intensive Care Unit. SCAMPs are a methodology for the systematic optimization of treatment protocols, but are incapable with dealing with the often subjective and uncertain clinical information commonly found in critical care environments. The proposed technology will overcome these limitations, and permit the application of SCAMPs to critical care, opening the opportunity to improve outcomes and reduce costs in this dynamic setting. The core of this system is a Physiology Observer that tracks a patient's clinical path and estimates the physiologic state. Through state estimation and uncertainty propagation, patient risk is objectively assessed, offering the consistency needed for methods such as SCAMPs. The Phase 1 effort will establish the feasibility of STEPS to evaluate patient data and objectively assess risk using a demonstrative patient population. The Phase 2 effort will focus on deploying STEPS on an in-house clinical platform and validating the system when integrated into a formal SCAMP.
Treatment decisions in critical care often rely on subjective information, evaluated by clinicians. This leads to variation in patient outcomes, driving up the cost of care. In conventional medicine, methods exist to reduce this variation, leading to reduce costs and better care. However, these methods cannot be applied in the Intensive Care Unit due to the subjective information. The proposed technology will overcome this limitation by using advanced estimation techniques to analyze patient data and objectively assess patient risk.
