Patent ID: 8812841

Claim:
A communications device for effecting secured communications between a plurality of portable patient communicators (PPC) and a central authority (CA), each of the plurality of PPCs configured to effect connectivity with a patient implantable medical device (PIMD), the communications device comprising: a housing; a logical network port provided at the housing and configured to facilitate communications between the device and an unsecured network; a plurality of logical local ports provided at the housing and configured to implement a plurality of disparate communication protocols for effecting connectivity between the device and the plurality of PPCs; a processor provided at the housing and coupled to the logical network port and the plurality of logical local ports; and memory provided at the housing and coupled to the processor, the memory storing life critical network (LCN) software comprising program instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to detect presence of entities that come into proximity with the communications device, determine whether or not the entities requesting a network connection via the device are PPCs, authenticate only PPCs to the CA to establish a secured connection between each PPC and the CA, initiate interrogation of each PPC in response to the PPC coming into proximity with the communications device, facilitate communication between the PPCs and the CA via the logical local ports, the logical network port, and the unsecured network upon successful PPC authentication, and transfer PPC data to the CA, at least a portion of the PPC data comprising PIMD data.