Computerised decision support for differential lung ventilation.

Abstract

Differential lung ventilation treatment is a mechanical ventilation strategy used for unilateral lung disease or injury. This treatment can be provided to patients who fail to respond to conventional mechanical ventilation to both lungs and is technically challenging to medical personnel. An effective computerised decision support system (CDSS) can be used as a support system to intensivists in providing this treatment to their patients. In this study, a CDSS for differential lung ventilation is presented. By using this system, the mode of ventilation to each lung can be pressure controlled or volume controlled and all ventilation parameters including the peak inspiratory pressure (P insp), tidal volume (V t), positive end-expiratory pressure, fraction of inspired oxygen (n}{}F_{{rm I}{rm O}_2}), and the respiratory rate (f) can be assigned individually to each lung. The proposed CDSS has the potential to be used as a support system to clinicians in providing differential lung ventilation treatments to patients.