Abstract:
Information of interest is graphically displayed in a manner which conveys the information to in a form which aids in comprehension of the information. Specifically, the information is preferably conveyed on the unit level through the use of the unit&#39;s floor plan in a graphical seating chart type format. A graphical icon is used to represent each room in the unit. Components of the icon indicate key considerations for every room. Additional information may also be displayed by clicking on a component of the icon.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application is a divisional of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/567,897, entitled “VISUAL DISPLAY OF ROOM INFORMATION”, filed on May 10, 2000, which in turn claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/133,524 filed on May 10, 1999; each prior application is hereby incorporated by reference. 
    
    
     FIELD 
     The present invention relates generally to a hospital communication system, and more particularly to an apparatus and method to present patient room information to hospital personnel to enhance comprehension of such information. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Nurses and other attending staff in a hospital ward or hospital wing work under conditions involving high pressure, stress and long hours. These care givers must remain alert to respond to patient needs, in both emergency and non-emergency situations. Due to economic practicalities and the ever-increasing costs of medical care, it is necessary to make the most efficient use of nurses and staff on call in a hospital ward or hospital wing, particularly at night when nurse and staff levels are maintained at a minimum. 
     On the other hand, a desire to optimize the efficiency of nurse and staff personnel is of secondary importance relative to the primary objective, that of providing a high level of medical care to a patient. If nurse and staff levels are reduced for the sake of efficiency without any corresponding simplification of duties and responsibilities, the level of patient care will decrease. Therefore, it is desirable to maximize the efficiency of nurses and staff on call in a hospital wing or hospital ward, but to do so in a manner which does not increase the work load or stress levels of these professional care givers nor decrease the level of patient care. 
     One approach to maximizing the efficiency of nurses and other hospital staff involves providing information needed by these professionals in a location remote from a patient room. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,038 to Ulrich et al. discloses a bed status information system of hospital beds which provides remote instantaneous retrieval of unique identification information about the bed and provides status information related to the position of the bed, the configuration of the mattress surface, the status of the safety systems on the bed, and the current state of various patient care systems integrated with the bed. Monitoring of patient information therefore does not require attendance within the room to locally view and interpret various types of information. U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,821 to Ballantyne et al. discloses a method and apparatus for electronically accessing and distributing personal health care information and services in hospitals and homes in which certain information, ranging from patient health record information to patient and operating room monitoring information, is distributed to a nursing station within a hospital. 
     Providing information to nurses and other hospital staff in a location remote from a patient room creates certain problems. Among the problems is presenting information to the medical professionals in a way that assists them in effectively monitoring the information without increasing their level of stress, which may occur if they feel overwhelmed by the amount of information. A need has thus been recognized in conjunction with responding to the aforementioned problems. 
     SUMMARY 
     The present invention, in accordance with at least one presently preferred embodiment, utilizes the capabilities of computer to graphically display selected information in a manner which conveys the information to the nurses and other hospital staff in a form which aids in comprehension of the information. Specifically, the information is preferably conveyed on the patient unit level through the use of the patient unit&#39;s floor plan in a graphical seating chart type format. A graphical icon is used to represent each room in the patient unit. Components of the icon indicate key considerations for every bed control or admitting department. Additional information may also be displayed by clicking a component of an icon. 
     Consequently, the present invention broadly contemplates a method whereby hospital room information is visually displayed, thereby aiding nurses and other hospital staff in comprehending the hospital bed information. An example of other hospital staff which could benefit from the present invention include the staff in the admissions department and who assign patients to rooms. 
     In one aspect, the present invention provides an apparatus for the graphical display of room information, the apparatus comprising: a display and an arrangement for producing an icon for being viewed on the display, the icon conveying information on a room. 
     In another aspect, the present invention provides an apparatus for the graphical display of room information, the apparatus comprising: a display, an arrangement for producing an icon for being viewed on the display, the icon having a plurality of modifiable attributes, and a controller which modifies at least one of the attributes of the icon to convey information about the current status of a room. 
     In another aspect, the present invention provides a method of graphically displaying room information, the method comprising the steps of: displaying a floor plan of at least one room, displaying at least one icons within said floor plan, each icon corresponding to a room and having a plurality of modifiable attributes, and modifying the attributes of the icon to convey information about the current status of the room. 
     In an additional aspect, the present invention provides a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for the visual presentation of information about the status of rooms, the method comprising the steps of: displaying a floor plan of at least one room, displaying at least one icon within the floor plan, each icon corresponding to a room and having a plurality of modifiable attributes, and modifying at least one of the attributes of the icon to convey information about the current status of the room. 
     For a better understanding of the present invention, together with other and further features and advantages thereof, reference is made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and the scope of the invention will be pointed out in the appended claims. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  illustrates a graphical depiction of a patient unit in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and 
         FIG. 2  illustrates a graphical icon in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     As shown in  FIG. 1 , the floor plan  110  of a patient unit within a hospital is shown. An icon visually depicts the status of each room of the patient unit. The preferred components of the icon will be discussed below. To provide an example of the scope of information which is displayed in floor plan  110 , however, several of the icons shown in floor plan  110  will now be generally discussed. The icon at reference numeral  120  depicts an occupied room; the icon at reference numeral  130  depicts a room in which an emergency condition exists; the icon at reference numeral  140  depicts an unoccupied room; and the icon at reference numeral  150  depicts a room being cleaned. Important information is thereby visually conveyed to the nurses and other hospital staff in a manner which assists in the comprehension of the information. 
     Typically, there is additional information which is useful for the nurses or other hospital staff to have and which is not as important as the information shown by the icon itself. Secondary information of this type may be displayed to nurses or other hospital staff upon clicking on an icon. It should be understood that the secondary information displayed may depend on the information conveyed by the icon itself. 
     By way of example, if a user were to click on icon  120 , which conveys the room is occupied by a patient, secondary information such as the patient&#39;s pre-admission data may appear in a pop-up window as shown at reference numeral  160 . Additional secondary information about this patient may displayed by clicking on the button  170 . If the additional secondary information chosen to be made available this way is considered by the hospital or other institution to be sensitive, it is conceivable to make the information available only to those who enter a proper security identification into the system. Examples of such additional secondary information may include the patient&#39;s home address, telephone number, and social security number, although any information which an institution considers to be sensitive may be protected in this manner. Any number of layers of additional or secondary information may be made available or protected in this manner and a layer is not limited to those icons which convey the room is occupied. A layer of additional or secondary information should be understood to refer to any information which is not conveyed by the icon itself. Typically, another layer of information is obtained by clicking on the icon itself or the preceding layer. 
     The types of additional or secondary information which may be displayed for icons conveying information other than a room is occupied will now be discussed. By way of example, if a user were to click on icon  130 , which conveys that an emergency condition exists in the room, the user could preferably be given additional information regarding the nature of the emergency condition. If a user were to click on icon  140 , which conveys the room is not occupied, the user would be given additional information which could preferably include whether the room had been reserved for an incoming patient. If a user would click on icon  150 , which conveys the room is being cleaned, the user could be given additional information which would preferably include the name of employee performing the cleaning and the time cleaning was commenced. It should be understood that the secondary information displayed is preferably dependent upon, and thus is appropriate for, the information visually conveyed by the icon itself. Moreover, an icon is not limited to visually conveying the information discussed in the examples herein. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 2 , an icon  210  with its preferred components is shown. The portion of the icon depicted by reference numeral  220  preferably identifies the status of the bed or beds within the patient room. For icon  210 , portion  220  corresponds to the bed in the corresponding room to be occupied. Accordingly, this portion  220  of the icon corresponds to the icon represented by reference numeral  120  in  FIG. 1 . The outer border of the icon is represented by reference numeral  230 . Preferably, the color of outer border  230  depicts the sex of the patient. Blue preferably depicts a male patient and pink preferably depicts a female patient. The portion of the icon depicted by reference numeral  240  preferably contains various descriptive parameters. Although any number of descriptive parameters may be displayed in this portion of the icon, it is preferred to display four parameters to ensure the capability of viewing a significant number of parameters without excessively crowding information into the icon. Each parameter to be displayed is associated with a particular color and if the parameter applies, the corresponding color is appears in this area. Preferably, the parameters to be displayed and their associated colors are red for isolation, yellow for observation, green for telemetry, and a color indicating the age bracket of the patient, for example, light blue for an adult and brown for a child. It should be understood that the parameters to be displayed and their corresponding colors may be freely selected by an institution utilizing the system of the present invention. 
     It should be understood that information may be visually displayed in accordance with the present invention on a typical CRT computer monitor. It may be advantageous, however, to display such visual information on a flat panel monitor to enhance positioning of the monitor to enable a greater number of personnel to view the visual information. It should be further understood that information may be simultaneously visually displayed in accordance with the present invention for more than one patient unit. For example, it may be desirable for administrative purposes to have information for more than patient unit displayed on a single monitor screen, such as having patient units from different floors displayed on a single monitor screen. Accordingly, an administrator could view all patient units with a similar focus, for example, all cardiac units. 
     In recapitulation, the present invention, in accordance with at least one presently preferred embodiment, provides a manner of visually displaying information in a manner to enhance comprehension of the information. As such, it is to be understood that the present invention, in accordance with at least one presently preferred embodiment, may be utilized in environments other than hospitals, such as hotels, dorms, or any other situation where information about rooms is desired to be graphically displayed. 
     It is to be understood that the present invention, in accordance with at least one presently preferred embodiment, includes a display and an arrangement for producing an icon for being viewed on the display, the icon conveying information on a room. Together, these may be implemented on at least one general-purpose computer running suitable software programs. These may also be implemented on at least one Integrated Circuit or part of at least one Integrated Circuit. Thus, it is to be understood that the invention may be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of both. 
     If not otherwise stated herein, it is to be assumed that all patents, patent applications, patent publications and other publications mentioned and cited herein are hereby fully incorporated by reference herein as if set forth in their entirety herein. 
     Although illustrative embodiments of the present invention have been described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to those precise embodiments, and that various other changes and modifications may be affected therein by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention.