Diagnesia: A Prototype of a Decision Support System for Anesthetists

The complexity of modern anesthesia procedures requires the development of sophisticated workstations with built-in decision support systems having smart-alarm capacity. In this paper, methods used by a prototype (Diagnesia) of a decision support system for anesthetists are presented. During surgery, Diagnesia uses patient data recorded to continuously estimate likelihood and unlikelihood of diagnoses, applying arguments for and against the different diagnoses, and presents the most probable diagnoses to the anesthetist. The intended system is not meant to replace the current monitors or anesthetists but rather to facilitate decision making by improving situation awareness.