A platform for testing and comparing of real-time decision-support algorithms in mobile environments

The unavailability of a flexible system for real-time testing of decision-support algorithms in a pre-hospital clinical setting has limited their use. In this study, we describe a plug-and-play platform for real-time testing of decision-support algorithms during the transport of trauma casualties en route to a hospital. The platform integrates a standard-of-care vital-signs monitor, which collects numeric and waveform physiologic time-series data, with a rugged ultramobile personal computer. The computer time-stamps and stores data received from the monitor, and performs analysis on the collected data in real-time. Prior to field deployment, we assessed the performance of each component of the platform by using an emulator to simulate a number of possible fault scenarios that could be encountered in the field. Initial testing with the emulator allowed us to identify and fix software inconsistencies and showed that the platform can support a quick development cycle for real-time decision-support algorithms.