Modern critical care is characterized by the collection of large volumes of data and the making of urgent patient care decisions. The two do not necessarily go together easily. For many years the hope has been that ICU data management systems could play a meaningful role in ICU decision support. These hopes now have a basis in fact, and this book details the history, methodology, current status, and future prospects for critical care decision support systems. By focusing on real and operational systems, the book demonstrates the importance of integrating data from diverse clinical data sources; the keys to implementing clinically usable systems; the pitfalls to avoid in implementation; and the development of effective evaluation methods.