PLACO: a cooperative architecture for managing workflow in CCU.

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a multi-disciplinary research theme involving software developers, computer scientists, as well as psychologists and sociologists. CSCW is devoted to the analysis of interactions among humans when performing their work in a collaborative way. The main application fields are work organization, healthcare, education and training. The term of Groupware, as defined by C.A. Ellis, refers to software that assists groups of people in communicating, in collaborating and in coordinating their activities. Our objective is to study software architectures allowing task coordination and conflict management between participants within a distributed environment, in particular medical units. We do not aim to produce a practical system suitable for near-term deployment in the Critical Care Unit (CCU), but rather a "proof of concept", an experimental system that performs and coordinates a range of intelligent planning tasks in CCU activities. The emphasis will be put especially on asynchronous cooperation since the work of physicians and nurses is discontinuous.