DESCRIPTION CONTINUED:  It is anticipated that these systems will provide the following benefits: -  1.	Advance warning of patient health deterioration.  2.	Improved health care resource allocation.  3.	Reduction in morbidity/mortality rates.  Clearly any diagnostic support tool that will increase ward vigilance and help inform care-givers of patient deterioration will potentially become another useful instrument in the armoury of the ICU. 
Intensive care units collect data on a range of patient parameters, on a whole cohort of seriously ill/injured patients. To date there is no system whereby this valuable data can be used to detect future adverse clinical events, and therefore no 'smart' alarm systems that could alert the ITU nurse or doctor to a forthcoming adverse clinical event. This project therefore focuses on developing the technology to apply data mining and knowledge management techniques to develop an objective analytical database though tend analysis.