22-08-2013, 03:04 PM
Efficient SCADA Module for Improving Medical Information Monitoring and Reliable Medical Service in Hospital Networks
Efficient SCADA Module.pdf (Size: 257.64 KB / Downloads: 12)
Abstract
The proper functioning of large infrastructures in hospital networks, the continuity of the vital services
they provide is largely taken for granted, both by direct users and by those responsible for other,
dependent infrastructures and services. Modern automation system used in infrastructure including
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to monitor and supervised the functionality of
infrastructure. The interoperability of heterogeneous medical devices, clinical information systems and
components such as computer assisted surgery (CAS) and Therapy Imaging and Model Management System
(TIMMS) has been recognized for its potential to improve the overall clinical workflow of operating room
systems as well as ergonomic conditions by centralized access and control of integrated system. However,
the installation of an integrated IT infrastructure with additional computer hardware, software, and network
components heavily increase the overall technical complexity of operating room system. In hospital
networks, the life critical domain within the operating room system demands safe and reliable operation of
the integrated operating room system components. This paper propose an appropriate technical supervision
framework that required supports of high confident functionality by facilitating systems monitoring and
diagnosis of the hospital networked hardware and software. System failures, hospital network bottlenecks or
unstable conditions should be detected to enable appropriate interventions and mitigation strategies.
Introduction
A recent report predicted an increase in demand for surgical services to be as high as 14 to 47% in the
workload of all surgical fields by 2020 [1]. Difficulties which are already now apparent in the operating room
(OR), such as the lack of seamless integration of Surgical Assist Systems (SAS) into the surgical workflow,
will be amplified in the near future. There are many SASs in development or are employed in the OR, mostly
in an isolated fashion. Their routine use in the OR, how ever, is impeded by the absence of appropriate
integration technology and standards. It is, therefore, necessary to address this situation and to develop strategies for improving surgical/interventional workflows assisted by surgical systems and technologies. How can we
figure out if the operating room (OR) system network are efficient?”" This question is increasingly common as
hospitals and medical professionals. There are hospitals build large expansions and want to open more ORs
even though there are gaping holes in the current schedules, and hospitals aim to minimize complaints from the
surgeon customer. Appropriate use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Mechatronic (MT)
systems as part of a re-engineered workflow is considered by many experts as a significant contribution to
solve the problem. This will require an appropriate IT infrastructure as well as communication and interface
standards, such as DICOM and suitable extensions, to allow data interchange between surgical system
components in the OR.[2]
Related Works
TIMMS Interface
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) a standard for distributing and viewing any kind
of medical image regardless of the origin, provides the closest basis for the design of TIMMS interfaces.
Standardization in the context of DICOM aims at providing support to fullfil a number of design criteria
derived from software engineering principles when realising ICT systems for medical activities. Engineering of
ICT systems for the assistance of surgical interventional activities implies the specification, design,
Implementation and testing of computer aided surgery (CAS) of image guided therapy (IGT) System. A number
of components for such systems have been developed in academic and industrial settings and are applied in
various surgical desciplines.
System Architecture and Methods
Figure 3 shows the modular design of our network medical system, which focused on the operating room
system integration infrastructure follows the Therapy Imaging and Model Management System (TIMMS)
meta-architecture, which was published by Lemke and Vannier in 2006 [2]. Our proposed prototype TIMMS
implementation interconnects standard CAS components such as tracking, PACS, display and video routing as
well as navigation, patient modeller, workflow software, and the central surgical display. In contrast to existing
proprietary integration solutions, we are focussing on the development of an open architecture using standard
communication protocols (e.g. DICOM, RTP, SNMP, ZeroConf, TCP/IP) and standard network technologies
such as Ethernet. The integrated system has a central management unit, the TIMMS Component Controller
(TCC), which facilitates service discovery, session management, time synchronization and component control.
Hardware Components
Diagnostics information from network and computer systems is gathered by hardware management agents,
which reside in the supervised components. Nowadays, the standard network hardware such as routers and
gateways already implement SNMP agents, which maintains access to configuration information and network
traffic parameters (Level 1). A master agent was designed for workstations that requires system and surveillance
information for every TIMMS workstation connected to the network (level 2).
These master agents obtain
performance indicators such as CPU usage, hard disc load, physical and virtual memory load as well as
network interface card traffic and translate these into the corresponding SNMP MIB objects.
Conclusion
Life critical environment within the operating room requires reliable and safe operation of medical device
hardware and software, especially when a large number of different technologies are applied. The proposed
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition for integrated TIMMS system framework is based on standard
protocols and encounters these requirements by introducing technical means for the acquisition of performance
indicators at hardware and software levels. The framework provides information to detect system anomalies such
as network bottlenecks, cache and hard disc space exceeds or CPU consuming software processes and
announces these using appropriate alarms to the corresponding user groups. The combination of AgentX
subagents with ARM enables the assessment of software performance as well as the detection of hanging or
crashed applications with the SCADA watchdog functionality. Further developments focus on automatic
reasoning of the overall system status as well as appropriate user interface feedback for the clinical users at the
surgical cockpit.