Patent ID: 8308640

Claim:
A medical communications system comprising: a plurality of patient identification devices, each connected with and carried by one patient and including: a patient identification device electronic patient identification code memory which stores a patient identification code for the one patient; and an intra-body communication device including: an intra-body communications transmitter capacitively coupled to a body of the one patient to transmit data over the one patient's body using near-field body communications; and a patient identification device processor which controls the intra-body communications transmitter to retrieve the patient identification code from the patient identification device electronic patient identification code memory and transmit the patient identification code on the one patient's body; and at least one medical device which is connected with and carried by the one patient, each medical device including: a medical device electronic patient identification code memory; a medical device intra-body communication receiver which receives the patient identification code transmitted using the near-field communications on the one patient's body; and a medical device processor which (1) initially causes the medical device electronic patient identification memory to store the patient identification code received by the medical device intra-body communications receiver and (2) subsequently automatically verifies that the patient identification code stored in the medical device patient identification code memory matches each patient identification code subsequently received from the patient identification device intra-body communications transmitter to verify that the patient identification code stored in the medical device patient identification code memory identifies the one patient.