Intensive care unit

Clinical researchers have developed software for interpreting the enormous quantities of data generated by bedside monitors.

Because the software has been licensed as a research tool, it provides a unified platform for collaborative studies with other medical centres, which feeds further development of the software.

Dr Peter Smielewski
Over the past decade, Dr Peter Smielewski and Dr Marek Czosnyka in the Neurosurgery Unit of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences have been developing software as an aid to monitoring patients in neurological intensive care. The intensive care multimodality monitoring system, or ICM+, has now been successfully licensed by Cambridge Enterprise Ltd as a research tool to medical researchers in over 30 centres worldwide.

The challenge addressed by ICM+ was to collate the huge array of complex, constantly changing data generated by bedside monitors, and to present them in a way that is quickly and easily comprehensible to medical staff.

At first, the software focused on data generated by monitoring patients with head injuries and hydrocephalus. But, the software is now increasingly being applied to conditions such as severe stroke, subarachnoid haemorrhage, cerebral infection and liver failure. ‘Because the software has been licensed as a research tool, it provides a unified platform for collaborative studies with other medical centres, which feeds further development of the software,’ explained Dr Smielewski.

The team also undertakes consultancy work through Cambridge Enterprise, to configure the software for specific needs and to provide advice to first-time users of the software. The majority of royalties received through the licence agreements are returned to the academics and the Department to provide much-needed funding for further research into finding solutions for helping patients in neurological intensive care.

For more information, please visit www.neurosurg.cam.ac.uk/icmplus/about.html or contact Cambridge Enterprise (Tel: +44 (0)1223 760339; email: enquiries@enterprise.cam.ac.uk; www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk).

 


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