Surgery – Diagnostic testing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-01-05
2002-04-02
Nasser, Robert L. (Department: 3736)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
C705S003000, C128S903000, C128S904000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06364834
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates generally to medical parameter monitoring and more particularly to an integrated medical monitoring system for use in a clinical setting. The medical monitoring system includes local patient monitors, remote central stations, and remote access devices, all of which are preferably networked together through a wireless communication system to provide overall patient care as well as data storage and retrieval through a single system. The communications between various components of the system are bi-directional, thereby affording the opportunity to establish monitoring parameters from remote locations, provide interactive alarms and monitoring capabilities, and provide data exchange between components of the system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Although systems for remote medical monitoring of patient physiological parameters are presently available, these systems suffer from some notable disadvantages. Some systems depend on a hardwired system which requires that patients be disconnected from a monitor, connected to a mobile monitor in transit, and then reconnected to the system at a new location. Furthermore, an additional monitor and often different sensor devices must be attached to the patient when the patient is in transit. These systems, therefore, are inefficient for use in clinical settings where patients are frequently transferred between various facilities.
Other systems employ wireless communications, but these are generally unidirectional RF transmissions from the monitor to the remote display only. Typically, physiological signal data is transmitted in analog form. The analog signal quality received at the remote display/control unit tends to be dependent upon the distance from the transmitter to the antenna(e); objects (building components, movable objects, etc.) in between the transmitter and receiver may compromise performance. Furthermore, transmission technologies such as UHF, which employ a particular base frequency for data transmission, face serious problems due to interference from other transmission sources which happen to be transmitting at or near the same frequency. These systems, therefore, suffer from low quality signals. Furthermore, due to the unidirectional nature of the communications, the care giver at the remote location cannot select which data is necessary to properly monitor a given patient, or select value ranges for various types of monitoring. Remote patient monitoring, therefore, is limited to performing pre-programmed tasks.
In still other cases, physiological data is initially filtered to determine when a limit has been reached, and an alarm is transmitted to a viewing station only when a predetermined alarm limit has been met. While generally providing a paging function, these devices do not provide for remote monitoring in a clinical setting or the transfer of large amounts of data.
Due to the limited communications between monitors and remote viewing locations, data transfer between systems is also problematic in prior art systems. Data collected in one remote display/control device must be loaded to a floppy disk or other transportable memory device and transported to another system. Therefore, it is difficult to maintain an electronic database of patient information for recordation, archiving, or analysis purposes.
Furthermore, when an emergency situation occurs, prior art systems generally require a relatively long time period to determine that an emergency has occurred and to broadcast the signal to a remote caregiver. This delay is extremely important in critical care monitoring, where a matter of seconds can make a significant difference in the outcome of a patient experiencing a life-threatening condition. For example, most available medical alert systems do not include an integrated paging system for providing appropriate information to a remote caregiver. Instead, an external paging system is often connected. These external paging systems must access a clinical database, search the data collected in databases for emergency situations, and determine when to provide a paging signal. These steps require that communication links be established between disparate equipment, and that a significant amount of data be processed before an emergency is detected, thereby wasting critical time. Furthermore, once an emergency situation is found, prior art systems generally provide a paging signal through a standard paging system. Publicly available paging and other communication systems, however cannot be controlled by the user. Frequently, these systems are overloaded at peak use times, thereby adding a further delay to the delivery of a medical alert system
Other problems associated with prior art medical alert systems include difficulties associated with controlling the broadcast of a message and difficulties associated with determining whether an emergency message has been received. The public communications systems relied on many medical systems are prone to failure or to closure due to business decisions or bankruptcies. A medical alert system relying on such a communications system can, therefore, suddenly discover that it has lost medical alert capabilities. Furthermore, prior art systems often do not provide the communications systems necessary to alert the sending system that a message has been received, read, or responded to by a caregiver, or to determine whether a receiver is activated and capable of receiving a message.
Other prior art systems which incorporate wireless communications often depend on FM or other types of communication links which are prone to interference, have limited bandwidth capabilities, and generally provide insufficient data to a caregiver receiving a page. Furthermore, these devices often do not include a reply or response system which can guarantee that a message has been received, or that the receiving device is operational.
Prior art monitoring systems often also require the manual transfer of information to patient medical records, including waveform data which is often printed from a monitoring device, and is then cut and pasted into the patient's medical records. Manual record keeping of this type, including the manual entry of prescription data, physiological data, and even insurance and billing data, is prone to error.
There remains a need, therefore, for an integrated medical monitoring system which provides bi-directional, wide bandwidth communications between a number of elements including patient monitors, central monitoring systems, medical alert systems, and analysis systems to allow both monitoring and sharing of collected data for data intensive physiological parameters and waveforms. Such a system preferably would include an electronic data entry system such as a bar code scanner or other device to simplify entry of data, and to simplify transfer of data to an overall clinical information system. Preferably the clinical information system would include data such as billing and insurance information, laboratory results, and vital sign and waveform information in electronic medical records.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an integrated medical monitoring system which includes local patient monitors, central viewing stations, and remote access devices, and an electronic data entry system.
It is another object of the invention to provide an integrated medical monitoring system including patient monitors, central monitoring systems, and remote access devices using bi-directional data transmission.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a novel medical monitoring system that enables dynamic control of remote monitoring simultaneously with medical parameter and/or waveform data acquisition.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide an improved medical monitoring system which can receive and control a plurality of medical parameters and/or waveforms being monitored at remote locations.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a component which can be used therewith to automatically acquire and store data pertai
Kirchner Renee S.
Reuss James L.
Astorino Michael
Criticare Systems, Inc.
Nasser Robert L.
Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C.
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