2.2.6 Summary

All of the information described so far can be thought of ``discrete'' patient data. It is generally recorded manually and only requires infrequent updates. For example, admission/discharge only occurs once during a patient stay. ICU transfer will only occur a few times. Medication will only occur a few times a day and reports will be added when particular diagnostics are performed.

In contrast, the high resolution waveforms which are discussed next are recorded constantly. Measurements are recorded automatically by computer 125 times per second. The relational database described above is a poor device for recording data of this type and a separate system is used to store these waveforms.