Medical Information Bus

Abstract

What began as a joint effort between LDS Hospital and Phoenix Baptist Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, has led to an approach to the systematic gathering of computerized patient physiological data and the management of therapeutic devices in the intensive care and surgery settings [1-3]. The Medical Information Bus (MIB) is a network that enables up to 250 microprocessor- based patient devices (either infusion pumps or monitoring devices) to communicate with a central computer through the use of programmable device communications controllers, or DCCs. Data from medical devices are converted into a standardized format through the use of the DCCs. The DCCs from the different devices transmit the data across a network bus to a master communications controller (MCC). In the HELP system the data are transferred to a CRDS (Charles River Data Systems; see Chapter 2) minicomputer which in turn transmits it to the Tandem computer for permanent storage. Data may flow in the reverse direction as well and instructions may be sent to the devices by health-care personnel from any of the nursing division’s computer terminals.