A moral decision support system in medicine

Abstract

Intensive Care Units are, in hospitals, special units where the use of ethics is common. Usually, there are few available beds and financial costs are huge. In this paper, it is presented a model for the simulation of the allocation of resources, in an Intensive Care Unit. Since it is a problem that deals with human life, decisions must be supported by a sound reasoning process in order to cause the minimum damage. Therefore, it is important to introduce the concept of ethics and moral reasoning, in particular taking the maximum advantage of moral agents, which are entities capable of making intelligent decisions based on moral guidelines. These entities have also an intelligent behaviour, simulating a physician con- duct when there is an overcrowding of patients in the Unit. The decision process is carried out based on the computation of some critical factors, including a death rate, the survival quality and financial costs. The death rate is achieved using SAPS3 algorithm.