Patent ID: 7967190

Claim:
A health care service (HCS) network comprising: a hand held optical reader for reading a target having information bearing indicia provided thereon and generating therefrom a decoded out indicia data message, the hand held optical reader having a first wireless transceiver and a display; a base unit for receiving the decoded out indicia data message and transmitting the decoded out indicia data message, the base unit having a second wireless transceiver; a workstation in communication with a server for receiving the decoded out indicia data message from the base unit and temporarily storing the decoded out indicia data messages; wherein the HCS network is configured so that the hand held indicia reader reads the indicia symbol and transmits the decoded out indicia data message using the first wireless transceiver, the base unit receives the decoded out indicia data message using the second wireless transceiver and transmits the decoded out indicia data message to the server; wherein the HCS network is configured so that the server communicates non indicia data messages with the base unit and the base unit communicates the non indicia data messages with the optical reader; wherein the optical reader display is configured to display non indicia data messages originating from the server; and, wherein the HCS network is configured so that the hand held indicia reader and the base unit have a linking mode wherein a request to link is sent from the optical reader to the server through the base unit by way of wireless communication to associate the optical reader with the server.