Development process of multiagent system for glycemic control of intensive care unit patients

Abstract

This article presents the entire process of developing an agent-based system for the glycemic control of patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The agent’s goal is to monitor and recommend treatment to keep the patient’s blood glucose within the target range, avoiding complications in the health of patients and even decreasing rates of morbidity and mortality in the ICU. The process of developing the agent-based solution was presented, starting from the understanding of the problem, including a brief review of the literature, going through the pre-project and modelling through the Tropos methodology, until the implementation. The agent inference mechanism is based on production rules and intuitionistic fuzzy logic. An illustration of use, with the collaboration of a specialist intensive care physician, shows how agents behave in a real situation of monitoring and controlling the blood glucose of patients admitted to the ICU, interacting with all elements of the proposed architecture. Finally, feedback from health professionals indicate the system can assist in the glycemic control of patients in the ICU having advantages over traditional monitoring systems.