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SMART—An Integrated Wireless System for Monitoring Unattended Patients

^a Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
^b Universidad de Concepción, Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Concepción, Chile
^c Decision Systems Group, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
^d Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
^e Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
^f Department of Biomedical Informatics, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ.

^_* Correspondence: Dorothy Curtis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 77 Massachusetts Ave., BLDG 32-G914, Cambridge, MA, 02139 (Email: dcurtis{at}csail.mit.edu).

Received for publication: 11/14/05; accepted for publication: 10/03/07.

Monitoring vital signs and locations of certain classes of ambulatory patients can be useful in overcrowded emergency departments and at disaster scenes, both on-site and during transportation. To be useful, such monitoring needs to be portable and low cost, and have minimal adverse impact on emergency personnel, e.g., by not raising an excessive number of alarms. The SMART (Scalable Medical Alert Response Technology) system integrates wireless patient monitoring (ECG, SpO₂), geo-positioning, signal processing, targeted alerting, and a wireless interface for caregivers. A prototype implementation of SMART was piloted in the waiting area of an emergency department and evaluated with 145 post-triage patients. System deployment aspects were also evaluated during a small-scale disaster-drill exercise.