Patent ID: 7448996
Filing Date: 2008-11-11
Classification: A61B,G06Q,G16H,H04L,H04M,H04Q,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A patient monitoring system comprising: one or more patient monitoring devices for one or more patients, each patient monitoring device including a physiological transducer monitoring physiological characteristic data of said one or more patients and storing said physiological characteristic data in a device memory, and a first wireless communication system automatically transmitting and synchronizing said physiological characteristic data to a common hub over a first communication link, wherein said physiological data is associated with a time stamp representing a time reading from an internal microprocessor taken when said physiological characteristic data is recorded, wherein said synchronizing includes comparing said time stamp with a time stamp received from a common hub and transmitting said physiological characteristic data and said associated time stamp to said hub only when said time stamp indicates a time after said time stamp received from said hub, wherein said physiological characteristic data and associated time stamp are deleted from said device memory when said associated time stamp represents a time earlier than said time stamp received from said hub; wherein said internal microprocessor receives an indication of the current time from said hub and updates its time to the current time received from said hub; a common hub remote from said patient monitoring devices and including a second communication system automatically receiving and synchronizing said physiological characteristic data from said patient monitoring devices and exchanging messages with said patient monitoring devices over said first communication link from said one or more patient monitoring devices and automatically transmitting and synchronizing said physiological characteristic data, received from said patient monitoring devices, to a remote server over a second communication link, wherein synchronizing said hub with said patient monitoring device includes transmitting a time stamp stored at said hub to said patient monitoring device, wherein said time stamp stored at said hub is previously received from said remote server; wherein synchronizing said hub with said remote server includes receiving a time stamp from said remote server and replacing said time stamp stored at said hub with said time stamp from said remote server, and wherein said hub receives a current time indication from said remote server and updates an internal hub microprocessor to said current time indication, wherein a time indication from said internal hub microprocessor is later sent to said patient monitoring device to update the current time at said patient monitoring device; and a remote server including a third communication system receiving said physiological characteristic data from said hub over said second communication link, which automatically synchronizes said physiological characteristic data from said common hub and exchanges messages with said common hub over said second communication link, wherein said server receives a time stamp associated with said physiological characteristic data from said hub, wherein said server compares the time reading of said time stamp to a time reading of a previously received time stamp associated with physiological characteristic data, wherein said server discards said physiological characteristic data and said time stamp when said time reading of said time stamp is earlier than said time reading of said previously received time stamp, wherein said server transmits the later of said time stamp and said previously received time stamp to said hub to synchronize said physiological characteristic data from said common hub, and wherein said remote server transmits an indication of the current time to said hub.