Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Message storage or retrieval
Reexamination Certificate
1997-07-29
2001-04-10
Hunter, Daniel S. (Department: 2749)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Message storage or retrieval
C455S403000, C379S067100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06215992
ABSTRACT:
AUTHORIZATION
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrights whatsoever.
MICROFICHE APPENDIX
This specification includes a microfiche appendix which consists of 3 sheets of microfiche containing 285 frames.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to centralized dictation systems (“CDS” or “CDSs”) for conducting dictation sessions a user from a telephone handset, and more particularly, though in its broader aspects not limited to, methods and apparatus for conducting dictation sessions on CDSs of different manufacturers employing a novel and improved 900 MHz wireless dictation device (“WDD”) and a novel 900 MHz base station which define a universal dictation input system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Certain work environments lend themselves to a shared or centralized dictation system (“CDS”), implemented on one or more computers, for helping a group of workers maintain records about the group's services, projects, products, customers and suppliers. The health care industry is an example of such work environments. Multiple doctors and other health care providers serve the same patient with each of the several providers frequently requiring access to a patient's records during hospital stays, for example, including the most recently added information. A CDS helps solve those and related record keeping problems, including keeping track of billing information.
CDSs available from many different vendors are employed in hospitals, health maintenance organizations (“HMOs”) and clinics, for example. Doctors and other health care workers use telephones to dial a CDS and record dictated information about a patient and, at least with some CDSs, to enter alpha numeric data pertaining to a patient into a data field associated with the dication session. The data is entered into the CDS through a dialing keypad of a telephone.
CDSs are accessed by telephone over a standard telephone line by dialing an address of a CDS into a hospital's private branch exchange (“PBX”) switch or, in some cases, into a public telephone company (“TELCO”) switch. The TELCO switch is required when the shared CDS is located remotely from the facility housing the health care workers. Cordless phones and cellular phones have been used with CDS systems. In health care environments, or campuses, the noise levels associated with cordless phones results in poor voice recordings on the CDS. In the case of cellular phones, their performance in heath care campuses, in particular, are frequently not satisfactory because these phones interfere with diagnostic and patient life support equipment.
Typically, a doctor sets up and conducts a dictation session with a CDS from a dictation station or a standard telephone located at a nurse's station, doctor's lounge or the like, often deliberately away from the patient. The doctor dials at the keypad the switch address for the CDS and, when a connection is established to the CDS, enters a user identification number, a patient identification number and other administrative and billing information using the 0-9, * and # keys of a standard dialing keypad or the 0-9, *, #, A, B, C and D keys of an extended, standard dialing keypad. The extended keypad is preferred for use with CDSs which employ the A-D within their command set. The CDS issues voice prompts to the doctor requesting the foregoing information. Thereafter, a dictation session is started with dictation control commands generated by pressing the keys on the standard keys of a dialing keypad. For example, a dictation session is started by the doctor pressing the # key and stopped by releasing the # key. Other dictation commands including “rewind”, “fast forward”, “pause” and “play” are invoked by pressing other keys on the keypad. The DTMF tone signal associated with a key press is interpreted by the CDS as a dictation command and is context dependent. The assignment of particular keys among a dialing keypad to particular dictation commands is, for the most part, unique to the vendor of the CDS. Me l s of each CDS command and its associated dialing key, for a given CDS, is referred to as the CDS's command set or list.
SUMMARY
In view of the foregoing, one object of the present invention is to create universal dictation apparatus and method which overcome limitations of conducting dictation sessions with a CDS using a standard telephone, whether a standard line or cordless type.
It is also an object of the present invention to improve the ease of use and increase the breadth of features for a worker, such as a health care provider, faced with frequently setting up and conducting voice recording sessions on a CDS accessed over a dialed line, wherein the CDS is one among multiple models available from a number of different manufacturers.
Another object of this invention is to design a WDD which is customizable to the particular needs of individual workers among a group of workers sharing access to one or more CDSs, of different manufacture, through one or more base stations.
Yet another object of the invention is to incorporate into a base station of a dictation input system a voice recognition feature for translating individual spoken CDS dictation commands into DTMF tone signals to which the CDS correctly responds. Even a further object hereof is to combine a text to speech capability with the voice recognition feature to provide audio feedback from a base station to the user of a WDD of spoken words, in particular words for the decimal digits 0-9. This feature improves the accuracy of data entered through a WDD by voice.
Further, it is an object hereof to assign just one unique fill duplex RF channel among a fixed number of such channels to a base station for communicating with several WDDs over the unique channel, one at a time, and to assign to each WDD multiple unique RF channels associated with a like number of base stations, thereby authorizing a WDD to conduct dictation sessions with a CDS through one or more authorized base stations, one at a time.
The novel and improved universal dictation input system, apparatus and method of this invention, in the disclosed embodiments, comprises a WDD having a 900 MHz RF radio and a programmed processor and memory for storing dialing addresses of multiple CDS and the unique channels assigned to multiple base stations Furthermore, the base stations of the system also include a 900 MHz radio and a programmed processor for communicating with WDDs, one at a time, over a single authorized RF channel and for making connections to various CDSs.
The WDD includes a standard DTMF dialing keypad which includes the DTMF digits 0-9, * and # and four programmable keys, among ten such keys, which add the four DTMF digits A, B, C and D of a standard, extended DTMF keypad. All of the keys of the keypad and certain keys among the programmable keys are represented in the WDD by a one byte ASCII character code. Some of the programmable keys are represented by a string of ASCII character codes representing, for example, the dialing address of a CDS. A bar code reader mounted in the WDD is active when the power to the WDD is on. Moving the bar code reader over a bar code pattern attached, for example, to a hospital patients identification bracelet, gives rise to a string of ASCII code characters representing the 0-9 digits of a particular bar code convention The bar code reader serves as a CDS dialing signal generator by scanning a bar code containing the dialing digits for a CDS and by transmitting the dialing data to a base station.
All of the forgoing ASCII characters, or data, originating at the WDD are transmitted from the WDD to a base station in a packet or message form. Each packet includes a portion identifying the length of the packet
Ford Richard
Gaines Jason D.
Howell Dennis S.
Latson Donald E.
Nelson John R.
Hovey Williams Timmons & Collins
Hunter Daniel S.
Tran Pablo N.
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