Surgery – Miscellaneous – Devices placed entirely within body and means used therewith
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-21
2001-06-26
Lacyk, John P. (Department: 3736)
Surgery
Miscellaneous
Devices placed entirely within body and means used therewith
C600S300000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06250309
ABSTRACT:
THE FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to a system and method used in conjunction with an implantable medical device. More specifically, the present invention relates to transferring information from an implantable medical device to a remote location.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Implantable medical device systems known in the art comprise several components, including an implantable medical device, such as a pacemaker or a defibrillator, pacing and/or sensing leads, and a programmer. The leads connect the implantable medical device to the heart of a patient. An implantable medical device, such as a pacemaker or a defibrillator, commonly stores a variety of different types of diagnostic data which assist a clinician or a physician in evaluating both the operation of the patient's heart and the operation of the implanted medical device. The specific diagnostic data stored by the implantable medical device includes a variety of information, including a real-time event recording of pacing events.
The programmer of the implantable medical device system provides multiple functions, including (a) assessing lead performance during a pacemaker or defibrillator implantation, (b) programming the implantable medical device, and (c) receiving feedback information from the implantable medical device for use by the operator.
An analyzer, which is sometimes a subcomponent of the programmer and sometimes an individual component, is a microprocessor-based component designed to assess the electrical performance of a pacing lead system used in conjunction with an implantable medical device system. The analyzer utilizes the programmer as a control and display platform.
It is desirous to view or store information relating to the implatable medical device system or relating to the specific patient having the implantable medical device therein at a remote location. For example, it is desirous to transfer specific information about the implantable medical device to a remote location such that the information can be stored within a database at the remote location or included within a report generated at the remote location. However, prior art medical device systems retrieve information from a medical device either in a memory dump format which mirrors the format of the device and basically “dumps” the information from the implantable medical device to the programmer, or in a specific format, such as an American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) format, a waveform format, a numeric format, or a binary format. Information in any of these formats cannot easily be transferred via the Internet and converted into coherent information due to formatting issues. Thus, it is extremely difficult to interpret information in any of these formats at a remote location in order to properly store the information or generate a report based upon the information.
Therefore, there is a need for a system which will permit specific desired information to be transferred to a location remote from the medical device in a format which can easily be interpreted and manipulated. The system should easily allow for interpretation of data from the medical device such that the information can be stored within a database or such that a report can be generated based upon the transferred information.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a method of and a system for transferring information from an implantable medical device to a remote location in a form which can be manipulated at the remote location.
The present invention has certain objects. That is, the present invention provides solutions to certain problems existing in the prior art such as: (a) an inability to convert information related to an implantable medical device into a format which can be manipulated at a remote location, the conversion taking place within the implantable medical device; (b) an inability to convert information relating to an implantable medical device into a format which can be manipulated at a remote location, the conversion taking place within a programmer used in conjunction with the implantable medical device; (c) an inability to transfer information from the implantable medical device to a remote location in a format which can be easily manipulated at a remote location; (d) an inability to transfer information relating to an implantable medical device to a remote location such that the information can be stored within a database without requiring a device-specific program to decipher the information at the remote location; and (e) an inability to transfer information related to an implantable medical device to a remote location in a format which can generate a report about the implantable medical device without requiring a device-specific program to decipher the information.
The system and method of the present invention provides certain advantages, including: (a) the ability to convert information related to an implantable medical device into a format which can be manipulated at a remote location, the conversion taking place within the implantable medical device; (b) the ability to convert information relating to an implantable medical device into a format which can be manipulated at a remote location, the conversion taking place within a programmer used in conjunction with the implantable medical device; (c) the ability to transfer information from the implantable medical device to a remote location in a format which can be easily manipulated at a remote location; (d) the ability to transfer information relating to an implantable medical device to a remote location such that the information can be stored within a database without requiring a program to decode the information at the remote location; and (e) the ability to transfer information related to an implantable medical device to a remote location in a format which can generate a report about the implantable medical device without requiring a program to decipher the information.
The system and method of the present invention has certain features, including a first extensible mark-up language (XML) converter for converting information relating to the implantable medical device from an initial format, such as a memory dump format, ASCII format, a waveform format, a numeric format, or a binary format to an XML format. Another feature of the present invention is a second XML converter located at a remote location for converting the selected information from the XML format to a database usable format or a report format. This invention works with standard communications modules, such as a transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) module, located at both the location of the implantable medical device and at the remote location. Thus, a feature of the present invention is the ability to transfer the desired information about the implantable medical device over most communication modules to the remote location via an internet connection such as a local area network connection, a telephone line connection, or a radio frequency connection.
Other objects, advantages, and features of the invention will become apparent by referring to the appended drawings, detailed description, and claims.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5791342 (1998-08-01), Woodard
patent: 5857967 (1999-01-01), Frid et al.
patent: 5870549 (1999-02-01), Bobo, II
Krichen Jack P.
Webb James David
Lacyk John P.
Wolde-Michael Girma
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