Patent ID: 7250025

Claim:
A method of determining time delays in an intra-aortic balloon pump system between the occurrence of a blood pressure in a patient at a point in time and the display of a pressure value corresponding to the blood pressure in the patient at the point in time on a blood pressure waveform, the intra-aortic balloon pump system including an inflatable chamber, the method comprising: (a) determining a nominal time to issue an inflate command for inflating the inflatable chamber based on an ECG waveform of the patient's heartbeat; (b) adding a dither time interval to the nominal inflate command time to obtain an actual inflate command time; (c) determining a time to issue a deflate command for deflating the inflatable chamber based on the blood pressure waveform; (d) processing an inflation/deflation cycle in which the inflatable chamber is inflated at the actual inflate command time and deflated at the deflate command time; (e) acquiring blood pressure data from the patient during the inflation/deflation cycle; (f) analyzing the acquired blood pressure data to determine a realization time at which the effects of inflating the inflatable chamber are realized on the blood pressure waveform; and (g) determining a delay time between the actual inflate command time and the realization time.