A new artificial intelligence-based system has been developed that can indicate when trauma patients need massive blood transfusions by collecting and analyzing, in real time, vital signs during pre-hospital transport.  That information can indicate whether the patient will need a blood transfusion before arriving at the hospital.

The technology could help military personnel in active combat, as 22% of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who died following severe bleeding after injury could have potentially been saved had their bleeding been controlled early on.

APPRAISE, or the Automated Processing of the Physiologic Registry for Assessment of Injury Severity system, was developed by the Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute. It consists of a Windows-based ruggedized PC and an off-the-shelf vital signs monitor that checks EKG, heart rate and blood pressure– all standard indicators familiar to any caregiver.

Researchers from the Army, Massachusetts General Hospital, air ambulance service Boston MedFlight and two other Boston trauma centers developed software “based on statistical techniques currently used in stock market trading and manufacturing to determine whether particular data points represent real problems and not random fluctuations,” according to Massachusetts General Hospital.

Read more at gcn.com