Computer-assisted Diagnosis and Therapy in Postoperative Intensive Care Unit: "Intensive Care Consultant" and Early Clinical Experiences

In this study, a new expert system named lCC (lntensive Care Consultant) is developed to play a consultant role in the diagnosis and the treatment of problems encountered in early postoperative period of cardiac surgery. lCC consists of a knowledge base, a data base and an inference engine and provides consultative advice about myocarclial depression, cardiac tamponade, inadequate operation, hypovolemia, surgical hemorrhage and coagulation defect. Other İmportant features of ICC are the capability of explaining the processes of decision making, and adding new knowledge and updating its knowledge base. The system is developed in Prolog programming language environment. Forty-one patients were sampled by this expert system in the early postoperative period in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Department of the Medical Faculty of Pamukkale University. During this period, the approaches and treatments were exactly matched with ICC's advices. Thus ICC may decrease the risk in diagnoses and treatment when usedl in cardiac surgery postoperative intensive care unit. It may also be helpful in training of junior doctors