Clinical and practical requirements of online software for anesthesia documentation - an experience report

The aim of this paper is the presentation of a new version of the anesthesi a documentation software, NarkoData, that has been used in routine clinical work in our department as part of an anesthesia information management sys tem (AIMS) since 1995. The performance of this software is presented along with requirements for future development of such a system. The originally u sed version, NarkoData 3.0, is an online anesthesia documentation software established by the software company ProLogic GmbH. It was primarily develop ed as a disk-based system for the MacOS operating system (Apple Computer In c.). Based on our routine experience with the system, a catalogue of requir ements was developed that concentrated on improvement in the sequence of wo rk, administration and data management. In 1996, the concepts developed in our department, in close co-operation with medical personnel and the softwa re company, led to a considerable enlargement of the program functions and the subsequent release of a new version of NarkoData. Since 1997, more than 20 000 anesthesia procedures have been recorded annually with this new ver sion at 115 decentralized work stations at our university hospital. (C) 200 0 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.