Cloud Analytics Improve Neonatal Care

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

A study published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research finds a cloud-based data analytics tool was able to aid researchers in identifying potential problems earlier in neonatal intensive care.

Researchers found the use of a data analytics system based in the cloud helped identify problems in the neonatal care unit earlier than before. The study, published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research, reports the tool — called Artemis-IC — was developed by IBM and researchers from the University of Ontario.

According to iHealth Beat, a customized version of Artemis offered real-time and retrospective data analysis to improve the detection and treatment of certain problems, including sepsis. Researchers customized the platform to track health data on premature babies, including their drug and nutrition infusion, heartbeats, and eurological function.

Fierce Health IT notes researchers were also working on developing algorithms using data mining, such as, “If a pause in breathing occurs for more than 20 seconds, or a pause in breathing that is associated with a change in heart rate or blood oxygen saturation occurs,” then apnea is present.

“Artemis has the potential to revolutionize intensive care medicine, because it gives clinicians a way to discover early indicators of medical conditions and to encode these in clinical rules,” IBM writes. “Artemis also provides a way for clinicians to have online, real-time execution of the clinical rules in an intensive care environment.

“Patients benefit from the system because earlier detection of signs of the medical conditions may lead to earlier intervention that may potentially lead to improved patient outcomes and reduced length of stays. The clinician benefits from a decision support tool that provides insight into multiple streams of data that are too voluminous to assess with traditional methods.”