Design of a Novel Multifunction Decision Support Display for Anesthesia Care: AlertWatch® OR

BACKGROUND: This paper describes the design of a multifunction alerting display for intraoperative anesthetic care. The design was inspired by the multifunction primary flight display used in modern aviation. RESULTS: The display retrieves live data from multiple sources; the physiologic monitors, the anesthesia information management system, the laboratory values and comorbidities from patient’s problem summary list, medical history or history & physical. This information is integrated into a display composed of readily identifiable icons of organ systems, which are color coded to signify normal range, marginal range, abnormal range (by green, yellow, red respectively) and orange outlines for comorbidities/risk factors. There are dozens of text alerts, which can be presented as black text (informational), red text (important information) and red scrolling text (highest importance information). The alerts are derived from current standards in the literature and some involve complex calculations being conducted in the background. CONCLUSIONS: The goal of such a system is to improve the quality and safety of anesthetic care by providing enhanced situational awareness in a fashion analogous to the “glass cockpit” and its primary flight display which has improved aviation safety. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12871-018-0478-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.