Patent ID: 7356474

Claim:
A method for computer control of a plurality of operational subsystems, said method comprising: receiving a user protocol statement, wherein the user protocol statement is vocal; analyzing the user protocol statement; identifying a particular operational situation based upon the analyzed user protocol statement, the particular operational situation encountered in a particular operational environment and requiring one or more actions to be taken in response to the particular operational situation; retrieving a protocol corresponding to the identified operational situation, the protocol including both system actions and user input actions, wherein at least one of the system actions and user input actions are optional and wherein at least one of the system actions and user input actions are mandatory; automatically performing a first system action as specified in the protocol; determining that a second system action is optional; in response to determining that the second system action is optional, checking for an action override input from the user, wherein the action override input corresponds to the second system action; overriding the second system action in response to both receiving the action override input corresponding to the second system action and determining that the second system action is optional; and storing the system actions and user input actions to provide a record of the operational situation.