1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a system and a method of electronic documentation and categorization of medical obstetrics data.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In 2008, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) issued guidelines to provide Labor and Delivery clinicians with unambiguous definitions for the interpretation of fetal heart rate tracings. Fetal heart rates (FHR) are defined by characteristics including baseline FHR, variability, accelerations and decelerations. These combined characteristics allow the fetal heart rate to be classified as Category I (strongly predictive of normal fetal acid-base balance), Category II (indeterminate—not predictive of abnormal fetal acid-base balance, yet there is not enough evidence to classify as Category I or III) or Category III (predictive of abnormal fetal acid-base balance). These, in turn, help clinicians determine appropriate patient management.
Currently, a clinician must evaluate the fetal heart rate tracing, document all required characteristics and then make a determination of the fetal heart rate category, based upon the total of those characteristics. This proves to be a challenge under even optimal conditions, which tend to be rare in today's labor and delivery world. Accordingly, there is a need for a system to automatically categorize medical obstetrics data, such as fetal heart rate patterns.