Findings come from last week’s San Antonio conference, involving 80 national and international experts discussing diagnostic tools for healthcare teams in intensive care units, operating rooms, and emergency departments

(SAN ANTONIO, June 12, 2009) – The National Trauma Institute (NTI), dedicated to the funding and development of research addressing trauma injury in the United States, announced it will assist in the publication of a set of medical journal articles detailing findings from last week’s San Antonio conference on automation and decision support systems for hospital intensive care units, operating rooms and emergency rooms.

The conference, co-sponsored by the NTI and the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, involved 80 of the premiere academic and institutional experts in this field. The conference focused on assessing the current state of automation and decision support systems in hospitals, as well as the challenges of technology development in this arena.

Outcomes from this meeting included recommendations for research and development as well as for government, industry, and academic health care providers. Attendees also recommended transitioning current laboratory projects involving information technology into the direct patient care environment.

The ultimate goal for conference attendees is to help emergency, surgical and critical care medical teams improve patient care by incorporating automation technology into routine patient care.

“This conference was a rare opportunity for medical professionals and key representatives from medical equipment suppliers to discuss and assess the medical technology that assists caregivers in making diagnoses and establishing treatment,” said Monica DeWitte, Director of Operations for the National Trauma Institute.

“We want to share the knowledge we obtained at this meeting with medical personnel and medical equipment teams around the world,” DeWitte added. “For a great number of patients, the information care personnel receive from decision support systems is vital both for saving lives and for designing courses of treatments that allow patients to recover from trauma and other serious medical situations.”

Experts from a number of top medical facilities including the Alfred Hospital (Victoria, Australia), IFAC Medical Systems, the Mayo Clinic, McGill University (Montreal, Canada), the Office of Naval Research, U.S. Army Combat Development, the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Colorado, the University of Miami, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the University of Texas-Houston, the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston, the University of Texas Southwestern, Vanderbilt University and Virginia Commonwealth University attended the two-day conference.

Also attending the conference were representatives from a number of industry leaders in automation and decision support systems including Arcos Medical, Athena GTX, Body Media Advanced, Emmeskay, Hospira, IBM, Impact, Oridion Capnography, Inc., Phillips, Texas Instruments, Thornhill Research and Zoll.

According to DeWitte, the journal article will include contributions from academic professionals who attended the conference.

For more information on National Trauma Institute, please visit the organization’s
website at www.NationalTraumaInstitute.org.