A novel clinical decision support system (CDS) helps the clinician set up, maintain, and interpret an esophageal pressure measurement. The esophageal pressure CDS (Pes CDS) would remind the clinician to do an occlusion test whenever the balloon is first inserted or changes dramatically. It could monitor the occlusion test and provide feedback on the performance and success of the occlusion test. Changes in the patient or monitored data can be tracked by looking for changes in the balloon baseline pressure, changes in the amplitude of the pressure waveform, or changes in the pattern of the Pes waveform. Having information from the ventilator will further increase the ability of the system to determine when Pes is changing unexpectedly.