The evaluation of an expert system for the analysis of umbilical cord blood

An assessment of neonatal outcome may be obtained from analysis of blood in the umbilical cord of an infant immediately after delivery. This can provi de information on the health of the new-born infant, guide requirements for neonatal care, but there are problems with the technique. Samples frequent ly contain errors in one or more of the important parameters, preventing ac curate interpretation and many clinical staff lack the expert knowledge req uired to interpret error-free results. The development and implementation o f an expert system to overcome these difficulties has previously been descr ibed. This expert system validates the raw data, provides an interpretation of the results for clinicians and archives all the results, including the quality control and calibration data, for permanent storage. Issues regardi ng the clinical evaluation of this system are now detailed further, along w ith some clinical results illustrating the potential of such a system. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.