A system theory based digital model for predicting the cumulative fluid balance course in intensive care patients.

Surgical interventions can cause severe fluid imbalances in patients undergoing cardiac surgery, affecting length of hospital stay and survival. Therefore, appropriate management of daily fluid goals is a key element of postoperative intensive care in these patients. Because fluid balance is influenced by a complex interplay of patient-, surgery- and intensive care unit (ICU)-specific factors, fluid prediction is difficult and often inaccurate.

A novel network-based approach for discovering dynamic metabolic biomarkers in cardiovascular disease.

Metabolic biomarkers may play an important role in the diagnosis, prognostication and assessment of response to pharmacological therapy in complex diseases. The process of discovering new metabolic biomarkers is a non-trivial task which involves a number of bioanalytical processing steps coupled with a computational approach for the search, prioritization and verification of new biomarker candidates. Kinetic analysis provides an additional dimension of complexity in time-series data, allowing for a more precise interpretation of biomarker dynamics in terms of molecular interaction and pathway modulation.

Development of a Clinical Decision Support System in Intensive Care.

Background: Intensive care is confronted with an increasing complexity and large amounts of data provided by new technological tools. One way of assisting health care professionals is providing effective clinical decision support (CDS) systems.

Objectives: The aim is to develop a tailored model for the sustainable development of a clinical decision support system in intensive care.

Improving Fluid Management in Critical Care - Towards the ICU of the Future.

Background: The calculation of daily fluid balances is essential in perioperative and postoperative fluid management in order to prevent severe hypervolemia or hypovolemia in critically ill patients. In this context, modern health information technology has the potential to reduce the workload for health care professionals by not only automating data collection but also providing appropriate decision support.

Objectives: Within this work, current problems and barriers regarding fluid balancing in cardiac intensive care patients are outlined and improvement activities are specified.