McSleepy: Novel Fully Automated Anesthesia System

Filed in archive Diagnostics, Methodologies and Instrumentation on May 2, 2008

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Canada's McGill University has brought us the world's first fully automated anesthesia system: McSleepy.

McSleepy" assists the anesthesiologist in the same way an automatic transmission assists people when driving. As such, anesthesiologists can focus more on other aspects of direct patient care. An additional feature is that the system can communicate with personal digital assistants (PDAs), making distant monitoring and anesthetic control possible. In addition, this technology can be easily incorporated into modern medical teaching programs such as simulation centers and web-based learning platforms.

The said system - nicknamed McSleepy - administers drugs for general anesthesia and monitors their separate effects completely automatically, without manual intervention.

"We have been working on closed-loop systems, where drugs are administered, their effects continuously monitored, and the doses are adjusted accordingly, for the last five years," said Dr. Thomas M. Hemmerling of McGill's Department of Anesthesia and the Montreal General Hospital, who heads ITAG (Intelligent Technology in Anesthesia research group), a team of anesthesiologists, biomedical scientists and engineers.

"Think of "McSleepy" as a sort of humanoid anesthesiologist that thinks like an anesthesiologist, analyses biological information and constantly adapts its own behavior, even recognizing monitoring malfunction."

This system is expected to be available for commercial purposes within the next five years.

Find more details from McGill University.