ABSTRACT
This chapter looks briefly at the dollars, but more specifically at the performance enhancement and error reduction aspects of computers in medicine. New computer-based medical technology is expensive, at least at the developmental stage. Familiar hospital computer systems include intelligent monitors, computerized tomography scanners, and magnetic resonance imaging. There are a number of emerging technologies with applications in medicine that utilize the increased computational power of today's personal computers and workstations. This neural-based system would be useful in the setting of a busy emergency room, where time pressures contribute to diagnostic errors. Ying, McEachern, Eddleman, and Sheppard demonstrated the use of a fuzzy expert system to regulate the mean arterial blood pressure in postoperative cardiac intensive care unit patients. The Expert Systems Program at the Computer Science Branch of the Lester Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, established in 1984, has a number of expert systems projects under development.
