Fuzzy-Based Expert Supervision System for Feedback Controlled Oxygenation.

Supervision of mechanical ventilation is currently still performed by clinical staff. With the increasing level of automation in the intensive care unit, automatic supervision is becoming necessary. We present a fuzzy-based expert supervision system applicable to automatic feedback control of oxygenation. An adaptive fuzzy limit checking and trend detection algorithm was implemented. A knowledge-based fuzzy logic system combines these outputs into a final score, which subsequently triggers alarms if a critical event is registered. The system was evaluated against annotated experimental data. An accuracy of 83 percent and a precision of 95 percent were achieved. The automatic detection of critical events during feedback control of oxygenation provides an additional layer of safety and assists in alerting clinicians in the case of abnormal behavior of the system. Clinical relevance - Automatic supervision is a necessary feature of physiological feedback systems to make them safer and more reliable in the future.